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<p>The UK has some of the toughest legislation in the world in relation to the sale
of knives and offensive weapons. The sale and importation of a wide range of knives
and other weapons are prohibited under the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959
and the Criminal Justice Act 1988. The Offensive Weapons Act 2019 extended these prohibitions
to include possession in private. We will be banning ‘zombie style’ knives following
our recent consultation on new knife legislation proposals to tackle the use of machetes
and other bladed articles in crime. We will also be raising the maximum sentence for
those who sell prohibited weapons to two years imprisonment.</p><p>Despite this legislation
we are aware of ongoing advertising of prohibited items on social media and by online
retailers. To combat advertisements on social media, Schedule 7 of The Online Safety
Bill (set to achieve Royal Assent (this Autumn) sets out a series of priority offences
which include the sale of weapons. Companies, including online marketplaces, will
need to take particularly robust action to prevent the proliferation of this content
online and ensure that their services are not used for offending. This means companies
will need to proactively mitigate the risk that their services are used for illegal
activity or to share this illegal content, to design their services to mitigate the
risk of this occurring and to remove any content that does appear as soon as they
are made aware of it.</p>
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