VCRA & retailers undermining it

[AK47frizzle]

Guys, jeez, chill out with the UBER long posts an' have a bacon sandwich, it makes everything worth living for

[Ian_Gere]

^^Of all the animals I might choose to eat, if I were starving to death you understand and I'd run out of insects, pigs would be pretty far down on the list. I've heard people defending pigs with the likes of "they're really clean animals... in the wild", but they're not in the wild, they're kept in pens standing around in their own shit all day...

 

oh yeah, and if you're too attention span challenged, Friz, to take part in a debate which requires several ideas linked into a train of thought, per post, and/or replies to said, feel free to say nothing.

[Moose87]

yer but you do wash it first and then cook it. its not like the shit is engrained in the meat. i love haggis and thats not exactly made from the desirable parts of a sheep but it tastes boss.

well the only way we can get stuff sorted it would seem that we need a formally recognised government organisation to fight on the behalf of airsofters. if there is such a thing than theres a problem in itself that people obviously dont know about it. i think having to maybe have all players register and have it last longer than a year. would help. but i cant see anyway of making it safe other than making it the same as a shotgun license.

i dont see airsoft weapons as being more dangerous than knives and they are freely available to all over 18. i can buy a car which is more dangerous. you can get dangerous chemicals and explosive materials from downtown. but god forbid you have anything that looks like a gun. even tho gun crime is the lowest of all the violent crimes in our country. they need to get the priorities straight.

[JoW.]

I think the police actually don't want to get involved in further licensing because they are complaining that the FAC and SGC scheme is already underfunded. The ACPO want to raise FAC and SGC fees from £50.00 to £200.00 as it is http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22831522. If they smell a way of making money from a RIF scheme, though, they might change their minds; bear in mind the figures above, so you might have to fork out £150.00 to £250.00 for a RIF licence.

 

A SGC-like scheme would kill all transactions which don't go face to face between licence holders or between license holders and RFDs, and every person with a RIF would have to inform the police within 7 days by writing of every gun transfer or disposal or risk losing their license. The application and every 5 year renewal would have to be accompanied by the application fee (say, 200.00) two referees and loads of passport photos. If you move house, you would have to inform the police. This is a step even beyond what Frank has been mooting. Personally, I think it is over-restrictive and out of proportion to the the dangers posed by RIFs, as they are not firearms (thanks to having a ME under 1 ft lb). I don't remember if SGC licenses require you to sign an authority for the police to contact your GP and (by now) your partner/neighbours to find out if you have any substance abuse, mental or sociopathic issues, FAC licenses certainly do.

 

You are right to say that a players' body could do with countering the guff, should the HO decide that Frank's representations are going to result in action. There are players' bodies out there, my impression being that they have been generally sidelined because of the grip UKARA has had on distribution of airsoft guns (if you are going to pay a membership, are you going to pay it to a scheme that helps you get a gun or one that doesn't ), so I don't want to prejudge what has been going on with that.

[Lozart]

Well....maybe we all need to sign up to UKAPU and start going to the meetings then.

[Moose87]

ok i must be under informed. what is this UKAPU. what does it do? its involvement in the community and interaction with the law makers and police.

[Lozart]

ok i must be under informed. what is this UKAPU. what does it do? its involvement in the community and interaction with the law makers and police.

 

Google is your friend.... http://www.ukapu.org.uk/wordpress/news-2/

[JoW.]

http://www.ukapu.org.uk/wordpress/

 

(Ken Elston, of Fireball Squadron, you were a fountain of knowledge and good sense, and airsoft owes you a debt.)

 

Or, wot he posted 2 min ago...

[chris555]

Sounds good to me with a large membership it could have some clout and as we would all be registerd airgun owners could do away with ukara

[Ian_Gere]

I'm already a member...

 

...and a member of UKAPU

[Moose87]

well people might say that i should have known about it but its not encouraged to join. so maybe yer we should get as many people on it as possible so we can get a better idea of how many softers are around and theres power in numbers

[M_P]

The thing is, ukapu don't do anything to help themselves by raising awareness, if they can't make themselves be known then there's not much of a point in them.

[Moose87]

thats something that needs to change and fast. the power should be with the union not the retailors.

[JoW.]

Hmmm...I looked at the form and, for now, it's all roads lead back to UKARA. The chair is probably really busy now this whole thing has kicked off, maybe they might consider a proposal and vote on an alternative approach?

[Moose87]

im not sure if this has been stated before or im reading out of date stuff but i have just read through the crown prosecution services website. they state that being a crown servant is a defence for buying a rif. so all members of the forces dont need ukara.

[jcheeseright]

No, not the case. While it does read that way the application of the law on that one is that a crown servant can purchase a RIF for crown purposes, e.g. as training aids. Military personnel wanting to buy a RIF for personal use still need to be able to prove a defence like anyone else.

[chris555]

I would hope the chair is loosing a lot of sales at the moment and is feeling it but i do perfer this players union as a seprate body to represent us and if we have to register our guns and pay them a small fee to do it would be better for new players to no more two tone's

[Ian_Gere]

Lads, another thing we must get clear here is that whilst things like registering our RIF's seem innocuous enough now, I mean, if we're all law abiding citizens, then we have nothing to fear, right? Except who tf is going to be in charge of any such register? The police want nothing to do with it, and rightly so since airsoft guns are not weapons. Which brings us back to UKARA, or something very much like it, but this time, instead of registering ourselves as airsofters we would have to account for each gun.

 

How is that useful unless the guns have indelible serial numbers? I mean, let's say that my L1A1 is registered as belonging to me and, for whatever reason but let's settle on a very plausible one, that I'm skint and need the money, I sell it to someone who has no intention of airsofting with it and/or is u18, and later an L1A1 is used in a serious crime... if I know that my sale is dodgy, then obviously I would wipe my fingerprints off it before it left my possession and thereafter report it stolen (to cover myself in case I should be asked to produce it) - what is there to tie it to me? I mean, I could lie my arse off about a gun which could be tracked back to me, but in that case the police would have something to go on when interrogating anyone involved.

 

So what next, we have to hand them all in to be laser etched? All imports have to be etched too? Would private imports still be allowed, or would the UKARA retailers have a damn good point that the system would be more secure and cheaper to administer if only they could import and etch the serial numbers before any sales...

 

...and who would pay for it? How about the paperwork involved in private 2nd hand sales? What to do about selling parts?

 

No my friends, the whole thing is way out of proportion to any danger that airsoft guns pose as either dangerous objects or RIF's. Bear this in mind too: so what if a genuine epidemic of crime involving airsoft guns was underway? Of course being robbed under threat of violence is no fun, under threat of death it's probably worse; challenging a drunken arsehole for annoying people is unpleasant anyway, but worse if they pull out a weapon, a proper freakout if they pull a gun out I expect; but let's have it right, all anybody can do with an RIF is threaten. It's not even as bad as the hundreds of thousands of illegal punches which get thrown every year...

[JoW.]

Ok, the problem as I see it: UKARA is an organisation that works through static sites which are the insured bodies. If a site ceases to be, it no longer has PLInsurance, so in a way, you don't benefit from that site's insurance (and therefore your defence) until you become a member of another site. Some airsofters are happy to go to the same site time and time again, like joining a club, so the scheme works fine for them.

 

Other people like to roam (or find their local site has shut down and have to roam), and they end up falling through the cracks because they are not 'regular' enough be become site members. But they don't cease to be airsofters (even if UKARA ceases to see them as airsofters). You need a player's association that works from the players' point of view - like historical re-enactors who go around to different castles to put on displays. Even the BASC guidance which is UKARA-centric where airsofters are concerned says that a group that has PLInsurance in place covering airsoft shooting (a group = two or more people, btw) benefits from the defence. A player's association has more than two people, and can either purchase insurance as a syndicate to sell on to members, or require members to sign up individually to insurance (SAGBNI membership comes with 10mil GBP public liability - have to check whether it covers airsoft, or C3 insurance states that they cover airsoft). But because the PL insurance (and the defence) are tied to the player, not the site, you continue to have a defence even if you like to roam different sites or your site shuts down.

[jcheeseright]

agreed, registration is a terrible idea... germany has a system similar and it's apparently a MASSIVE pain in the ass.

 

having to be an RFD to sell airsoft guns retail, I don't see that as a problem, it'll shut down the dodgy market traders selling chinaguns to anyone who wants one (personally, I don't have a problem with that either) which will allow the VCRA to be properly enforced to a point. If the VCRA, in whatever revised form it may take is seen to be working then the police and ACPO will have no reason to look at airsoft any further.

 

A ban on personal imports I would oppose strongly, while it's certainly in line with only RFDs being able to sell it also allows for competition to die away overnight. That said, with the cost of airsoft stuff in this country already you could be forgiven to think there was a cartel controlling prices already!

[Ian_Gere]

Yeah, I get it JoW., but that is then equating airsoft guns with cars if you have to have insurance to be part of the most convenient, or the only, organisation which grants a defence. That is just not on. It doesn't matter if there's only a fiver in it between the average cost of being a site member and having personal insurance now, because insurance is a racket anyway: the moment it's mandated it's a licence to print money.

 

Something else which personal insurance would usher in would be law suits: "The site rules were such and such, but the plaintiff was shot by the accused in contravention of those rules... My client's hand was clearly raised, but the accused shot him in the head anyway, occasioning harm which we will show expert medical opinion diagnoses as permanent..."

[JoW.]

The insurance test for defence is not hypothetical, it is a reality. Here it is (VCRA, Regulation 2007):

 

Defences to an offence under section 36 of the 2006 Act or under paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to that Act

 

3. (1) It shall be a defence in proceedings for an offence under section 36 of the 2006 Act or under paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to that Act for the person charged with the offence to show that his conduct was for the purpose only of making the imitation firearm in question available for one or more of the purposes specified in paragraph (2).

(2) Those purposes are—

a the organisation and holding of permitted activities for which public liability insurance is held in relation to liabilities to third parties arising from or in connection with the organisation and holding of those activities;

b the purposes of display at a permitted event.

Insurance is not the only test criterion, so are film, theatre, tv, museums, Crown servants purchasing RIFs for duty purposes (hmm...42 Commando purchase order for 40 AKs...!) and re-enactors with insurance. UKARA is funnelling players through a single regime which gets them insured under the site operator's insurance by showing a level of attendance to enable them to become the members of that site. Z1 have unilaterally decided during a specific airsoft event, that a single, paid up attendance is enough to qualify for 'membership' of their site, throwing the previous UKARA mandated process into disarray (and gaining a measure of commercial advantage).

 

If ever there was a disconnect between reality and legislation, it is in how you can suddenly cease to have a valid defence because your site stopped operating or because you can only get out to airsoft twice a year. VCRA is forcing a reality onto airsofters which is unjustified from the danger levels posed by airsoft guns to society at large, and unnecessary because the actual crimes airsoft guns could be connected with are already criminalised. VCRA defence is all about status as a qualifying person, which is unjust because it has not been suggested that the guns themselves are dangerous enough to restrict possession, but that the people who want them are dangerous and must prove that they have a qualifying status. It is legislating the mentality that people who want gun like objects are undesirable and they should bear the burden of proving that they are not sociopaths.

 

(I highly doubt that you would get extra lawsuits based on how people are insured. The base activity remains the same (airsofting) and the insurance, whether purchased by yourself or by the site, should cover the same risks for public liability. If you sign up to a game, I don't think you are a member of the public any longer in the insured activity. And anyway, as it stands at the moment, you still run the risk of being shot in the head after you've raised your hand, but do you intend to sue for damages as a result, and would you expect to win?)

[Russe11]

The big problem with UKARA at present is this:

If someone moves around with work and manages to go out and skirmish once a month but never at the same place more than twice, he can never buy an RIF.

If another person who has multiple convictions for bank robbery and various firearms offences goes 3 times to the same site then waits for 2 months, he can buy as many RIF's as he wants.

 

The way I read the VCRA, we have to be able to prove the intended use of a RIF in order to buy or manufacture it AND also it has to not be proved that there is intention to use it for illegal purposes. UKARA only addresses the 1st part and because it fails to cover the 2nd part at all, the retailers have tried to cover themselves by taking an extreme stance on proving the intended use.

 

UKARA needs to be replaced with something else, maybe skirmish once and get a CRB (criminal records bureau) check and you would get an actual licence. This would allow you to buy or import RIF's. 2 tone could be done away with because lets face it, if I want to rob a bank I could buy a 2 tone gun and a can of paint. A CRB check would cost about £5 and take a couple of weeks.

The present situation is that we are all currently breaking the law but have to be able to present a valid reason for doing so. If we had some sort of licence this would make us legal and if stopped by the police we could present it before explaining what we have in our bags.

[jcheeseright]

However, if you start needing licenses then the government can just repeal those licenses and we're screwed. Not only that, but you don't need a license for a kitchen knife so why should you for an airsoft gun? I know which would worry me more, and it doesn't shoot bits of plastic.

 

not only that, a convicted bank robber would not be able to buy a RIF since they'll probably be released on license and one of the conditions of that license will be that they don't attempt to buy a firearm, imitation or otherwise. No point creating laws for something that's already legislated for.

[Russe11]

The point is that if someone is going to do something illegal with a RIF, they won't care if its illegal for them to get it. For the VCRA to work it needs to tackle those who intend to use RIF's for criminal purposes whilst causing minimum problems for those who want to use them for harmless activities. At present it does the opposite. Even if the UKARA database was changed to require a CRB check rather than need as much proof of skirmishing regularly, it would be a step in the right direction. It would involve about the same inconvenience but would do more to prevent criminal activity, especially if 2 tone was abolished.