Rejected petition: Amend Section 139 to ban all public bladed article exemptions.
Rejected on
Section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 allows exemptions for carrying blades in public for religious or cultural reasons. Court cases show these exemptions create loopholes used to justify carrying weapons. We need a whole ban on all public bladed articles, without exception, to protect lives.
Knife crime continues to devastate communities and tear families apart across the UK. To truly protect the public and save innocent lives, our legal system must adopt a uniform, zero-tolerance approach to weapons on our streets. Closing these existing loopholes ensures the law is clear, consistent, and leaves no room for exploitation.
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
You may wish to sign this petition, which calls for similar action: “Ban carrying religious, cultural & ceremonial bladed & pointed items in public” https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/770412
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.