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10th Dec 2020

Police are offering cash for knives, guns and knuckle dusters in weapons amnesty

Josh Kaplan

You could be offered up to £5,000 by police to surrender weapons as part of an amnesty scheme to get knives off the streets of the UK.

Police in England and Wales are offering cash sums to lawful owners of offensive weapons when they surrender their arms before the new Offensive Weapons Act comes into force.

The law will outlaw certain types of weapons that are currently legal to own in private, including knuckle dusters, zombie knives and lever release .308 rifles. To encourage owners to give their weapons in, police are offering amounts ranging from £2 for a knuckle duster to over £5,000 for a rifle.

The list includes:

  • £2 for a knuckle-duster
  • £5 for a disguised knife
  • £10 for a zombie knife
  • £14 for a blowpipe
  • £20 for a telescopic truncheon
  • £5,105 for a lever release .308 rifle

The full list, which includes many Japanese swords and rarer items like swordsticks, handclaws and bump stocks, can be found here.  Owners of these items have until March to hand over their swords and knives to designated police stations across the country.

Graham McNulty, deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police told the BBC: “The surrender scheme will enable us to remove dangerous weapons off the streets and assist in keeping our communities safe.

“Every weapon removed is possibly a life saved and I urge people to please help us make our streets safer.”

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