theguardian.comAn investigation has revealed that – if you wanted – you could kit yourself out with a small arsenal of banned and dangerous weapons that are being routinely and illegally sold on Amazon.co.uk.
The Guardian has uncovered the fact that illegal weapons, including some reputedly developed for military and police forces, have been put up for sale on the website. Not only are they breaching UK firearms and offensive weapons laws – they will even gift-wrap them for you.
The newspaper successfully managed to test-purchase three weapons from the online retail giant and are now in the possession of a pistol that fires a jet of high-strength pepper spray at 112mph, a 1m-volt stun gun disguised as a torch and a somewhat sinister baseball cap containing a hidden stabbing knuckleduster in its peak.
betanews.comWhile the stun gun and bladed baseball cap came from third-party sellers, the pepper spray pistol was sold directly by Amazon.co.uk and dispatched from the company’s warehouse just outside Milton Keynes.
The investigators uncovered a whole host of other illegal weaponry for sale on Amazon’s UK site including Knuckleduster gloves containing lead shot, a miniature pepper spray aerosol on a key ring, a keychain that doubles as a martial arts weapon known as a ‘monkey fist’ and a stun gun disguised in lipstick casing.
theguardian.comWhen they were notified of the presence of the items, Amazon removed them from its website immediately issuing the following statement:
All [Amazon] sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who don’t will be subject to action including potential removal of their account. The products in question are no longer available.
However, Amazon neglected to comment on the fact it was the seller of the pepper spray gun.
