I find it hard to believe any legitimate shop would sell a non skirmishing person a RIF on the promise that they'll gift it straight to their 15 year old child who does supposedly skirmish.
While I strongly suspect that OP isn't telling us the whole story, I can't see much of a problem with the sell-to-gift process,
if everyone is open and above board about it.
Given that it's always been legal to gift a RIF, buying one to gift to a 16 year old who has gone through the exact same process as anyone else who's got UKARA seems to me to satisfy the
intent of the law, which is to make it available only for "the organisation and holding of permitted activities".
I understand that we don't want RIFs getting into the hands of rogues, and it was a poor show by OP to ask how to get around the VCRA. However,
if he's now found a way to get one without subterfuge by playing some airsoft first, it's big shrugs from me.
Some things I'm bearing in mind:
1. There is no age limit on the defence for modification, so it's always been legal for his dad to get a two-tone, then for him to modify it into a RIF for the purposes of organised airsofting.
2. Berating the lad achieves nothing. If he can get his hands on a two-tone then there is in practice nothing stopping him from modifying it. All we can do is to encourage him towards the most responsible route,which is to play first, then postpone any purchases until later.
3. ... because he might be a fantasist who never does any of this anyway.
