Author: UKAPU News Desk

UKAPU/UKARA/ATB had an interesting meeting with the HO today. Will gather my thoughts on the subject and post something up tomorrow.

Matt, Chairman

Tomorrow morning we will be meeting with the Home Office to discuss the Police and Crime Bill. We will be bringing your concerns forward in relation to 8mm replicas being discluded from the definition of airsoft, airsoft replicas being defined as ‘only’ being able to fire plastic ammunition, readily convertible definitions and the issue of automatic replicas being defined as section 5 firearms (5 year prison sentence for the owner) if they creep over 1.3J.

The meeting was convened by the Home Office and they have invited UKAPU, UKARA and ATB as stakeholders. ATB is one you have likely not heard of. The Airsoft Trade Body was formed only a few weeks ago by a collective of retailers and sites in order to get representation. They have been in contact with UKAPU from square one, and are democratic and open. They haven’t had chance to put a website together but will do soon, so you will be able to find out about them on http://atb.org.uk/ UKAPU is really looking forward to working with them.

The Police and Crime Bill has had its second reading and is now moving to the committee stage. There is still ample opportunity for amendments. http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/policingandcrime.html

Matt Furey-King, Chairman

The minutes from our recent AGM are now on our website

http://ukapu.org.uk/wp/?p=1459

Of particular interest is the management meeting where we discuss issues with the police and crime bill.

Matt

It’s extremely helpful when you lot send us bits of information. There’s only a few of us on the committee and we don’t monitor all the forums, fb pages, news outlets etc. for airsoft news so sometimes it really helps us get on top of a situation before it develops. So thanks and please carry on doing it!

Matt Furey-King, Chairman

Very productive discussion at the AGM tonight. Talked about the state of play with airsoft representation in the UK, The Scottish Airgun Bill, the Police and Crime Bill, the new website and the EU firearms directive proposal, amongst other things.

Please welcome in the new committee, which is;

Matt Furey-King- Chairman

David Weston- Vice Chairman

William Kei Ho- Press Officer

Lee Dempsey- General Secretary

James Williams- Treasurer

We also set the membership subscription fee at nil, in order to increase membership. Minutes to follow. Thanks to everyone who joined in for their time this evening. UKAPU is officially back on track.

Matt Furey-King, Chairman UKAPU

The AGM starts in a few minutes, join here https://join.skype.com/i9chiR0sRnLe

Here is the agenda for the AGM on Monday evening. Please do try and attend. Everyone who attends will be given membership. We’ll keep things simple, and I aim to hold a management meeting straight after the AGM to talk about the Police and Crime Bill, Firearms Directive and other pressing matters. Just add me on skype, matt.furey-king, and on the evening of the meeting I will add all my online contacts to the group chat. make sure you install skype updates the night before!

Matt

Facebook’s moderation algorithm now seems to be deleting airsoft pages as suspected, but for my part I don’t think UKAPU should campaign against it unless our members think otherwise. Facebook is a private website and they can control it however they want, in line with their personal politics. The owners aren’t compelled to listen to the public.

We web users have over relied on Facebook and as a result have lost some of the freedom of speech that the web was supposed to provide. But there’s plenty of good airsoft sales forums and they are better moderated to prevent illegal sales.

It’s a shame to see our legitimate, positive activity marginalised yet again though, and I hope you will all continue to talk about airsoft on this site so that we can keep introducing new players.

Matt

For those who have been asking about the timetable for the EU firearms proposal, one has now been published. https://polcms.secure.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/upload/0982a1a4-8dc8-40d1-8414-f2ddf58516a0/timetable.pdf

Matt