The buyer is the one who needs the defence, but their need for it, is for the sake of the retailer/seller.
I, as a buyer, must be able to prove to the seller that I am a skirmisher. Proving that I am one, is my defence against prosecution under the VCRA.
However, if they sell to me without being confident that proof is there, it's the seller who's breaking the law.
You don't need a defence to sell, so saying that a defence is for sellers is just confusing semantics.
It isn't just semantics, Ed. The misunderstandings involved are fundamental to why the situation for us as players is the way it is. I know a lot of people are going to switch off in a moment and think 'oh, that's just Ian banging on about licences again... pedant/nit-picker/weirdo/loser/bellend!' or the like, here it is anyway because who knows, maybe this arrangement of words will be the syntax that makes the lightbulb go on for some people:
Under the law the buyer doesn't
need anything. It is the seller who has the problem. It is illegal to sell RIF's full stop. If selling RIF's is a big part of their business, they have a big problem. Sellers are however provided with a specified defence against prosecution which is when the buyer belongs to one of the groups/categories of people specified in another paragraph. Now here is the point at which the confusion arises and TBF the Home Office have not made it any easier and, in fact, may well have misunderstood what the wording of the law actually means.
The law puts the onus on the seller to ascertain that the buyer is a reenactor/filmmaker/etc and there is space for the Home Secretary to add people and/or circumstances regarding whom/which the specified defence will apply, without the need for the Act to be returned to parliament to be amended, and airsofters have been so added... but still, the defence is is the seller's, relating to any potential prosecution for selling. That's all nice and clear, right? Enter UKARA. An association of retailers which intends to allow members to easily check that the defence applies to any transaction they are about to make.
Then there has been discussion between UKARA and the HO which has resulted in the definition of an airsofter as someone who skirmishes at a site with public liability insurance and has a level of commitment defined by having played 3 times in not less than 2 months and not more than 12 months. And here is where the confusion begins, because all of a sudden, in practice, the onus has switched to the buyer to prove they are "entitled" to be regarded as belonging within the groups specified within the Act and its allowed additions, in order to have the privilege of going about their lawful business.
Not surprising when you consider that this has resulted from a retailers' initiative. But isn't it just a different form of words, ie semantics? No it bloody isn't! As it stands it's no wonder that so many people think that a UKARA registration is a licence, because it operates as one. UKARA has a de facto monopoly on ways which retailers can use to find out if they could be prosecuted for any particular sale or not, therefore players must have it too. Who has the whip hand? Yeah, UKARA. But the law was not worded that way. Under the letter of the law it is we the players who ought to have the whip hand, because it is our money which creates the business and our willingness to participate at sites with public liability insurance which satisfies the HO/UKARA scheme.
Still don't see there's a meaningful difference worth making a song and dance about? Consider this: a video of a person skirmishing is proof that they are reenacting some battle/conflict/skirmish or other. The why, where, when, under what circumstances are actually irrelevant in the face of the fact that seeing a person doing what the defence specifies they must, in order for the defence to apply to a sale made to that person, would be damn difficult to overturn in court as sufficient care taken, due diligence, by the seller. Where is the evidence, especially if the vid has been deleted? Where the evidence is in so many other court cases, in the testimony of witnesses: "Yes m'lud, I did email Mr. R. E. Tailor a video of me skirmishing and my mate Mr. R. Softer, who is also a witness, was in the video too." Case closed. Except that it wouldn't get that far because the CPS would save the waste of money. No need for UKARA or site membership.
Now I have no problem with 3in>2 as a sensible threshold, although I do think it should not be the only threshold or set in stone, nor do I have a problem with public liability insurance as a definition of an organisation, although I also think that clubs/teams who organise events on sites which already have the insurance should be recognised, nor do I have a problem with the necessity of players to provide retailers with such info as the retailer needs to satisfy themselves they have a defence, because without such info the sale could not go ahead...
...but who retains the whip hand is crucial. We cannot currently say "UKARA is restrictive to small would be retailers and its existence makes it difficult to complain to an ombudsman about the way imported RIF's do/don't clear HM Customs and the undefined handling fee which couriers charge on parcels which are stopped, because it's not as if the situation means that RIF's are unavailable, it's just that the whole combination keeps the price artificially high, so I'm going to take my business elsewhere." We need an "elsewhere" and that could be Luther. Our player focussed "elsewhere" however needs to have a framework which stops it becoming a new monopolistic entity, otherwise we will become the next problem...
Edit to add: I don't want Luther to have the whip hand in order that my personal grievances with the status quo can be addressed - I want us all, as individuals, to regain the whip hand - the power which being able to vote with our feet ought to bring. So the proposed voting has to be the way forward. I mean, if Luther becomes something like a Union, then issues such as poor customer service, misleading descriptions/spec sheets, and all that lovely stuff we are all to often called upon to advise about, may be addressable via threats/actual sanctions...
