UKAPUNews Posts from United Kingdom Airsoft Players Association.
I’ve just found out about this sad news. Steve Banks, Owner and Founder of Combat South, has passed away. Steve was one of the people to grab the reigns and really push UK airsoft to the masses in the 90’s. He was one of the key pioneers that made airsoft what it is today. As it happens I experienced my first organised skirmish at Combat South back in 1998 and Steve made me feel very welcome indeed, as he did with thousands of other newbies over the years. A big loss to the UK airsoft community.
Matt
Recently we’ve noticed some confusion on airsoft pages regarding the Police and Crime Bill (PCB) and the EU anti airsoft firearms directive proposal. Some have seen that the airsoft community has made huge progress on making airsoft safe from the EU proposal, and think that means all is safe in UK airsoft. It isn’t, not yet.
The Policing and Crime Bill 2015/16 is not connected to the EU proposal 2015/0269, its two separate problems which could each hurt UK airsoft in a big way. Unfortunately they both happened at the same time, but they are not connected.
This is the new (post parliament vote) EU proposal document http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&mode=XML&reference=A8-2016-0251&language=EN as you can see we got airsoft, replicas and even blank fire grenades (BFG) taken out of it.
The PCB on the other hand could still be very good or very bad for airsoft, so we have to make ourselves heard.
One (almost) down, one to go. We won’t rest till we have the PCB problems sorted out and you should stay aware too.
Matt Furey-King, Chair UK Airsoft Players Union
Everyone please read.
We have some great news for UK airsoft this morning. Lord Shrewsbury of the GTA has voluntarily decided to withdraw his amendment in regards to the airsoft exception from the Policing and Crime Bill 2015/16. This is the best possible outcome for UK airsoft. Lord Shrewsbury tells us he better understands airsoft now that he is properly informed, and that he is extremely keen to work with us and move forwards as a part of a unified firearms community. Please get word out and apply the brakes on this campaign, there’s nothing we need to counteract right now, the airsoft exception is not being questioned, and we certainly don’t want at this stage to create fruitless hassle for our valuable new ally. So to clarify, tweets emails and letters to Lords and Lord Shrewsbury should stop now.
When asked to contribute to this campaign the response from the UK airsoft was phenomenal. You should feel proud of the good work you’ve put in. There was a tiny element that was abusive and even threatening towards Lord Shrewsbury and needless to say, this is totally unacceptable behaviour and counterproductive, we condemn this behaviour unreservedly. Those individuals have been reported to the Police and we hope that such individuals are subject to the full weight of the law. But on the whole we saw an overwhelming positive response. I even saw some Mums writing to representatives to say tell them that airsoft had been a huge force for good in their children’s lives. I’d also like to make you aware that the 3 UK airsoft associations have done a colossal amount (most of it behind the scenes) to get us this far, and will continue to work for you over the coming months, so please keep supporting them in turn. Another group which gave us huge support was real firearms shooters, and grass roots shooting organisations such as Firearms UK. There wasn’t anything at stake for real firearms people and yet they leapt to the defence of airsofters. Bear that in mind should you see the firearms community facing hardship in the future.
Things are not finished with the PCB by any means. We still have concerns that, even with the exception in place, if you unwittingly import a slightly hot fully auto AEG, or if your fully auto HPA or GBB replicas are tested at maxed out pressure and with heavy ammo you could face section 5 firearms charges (5 years mandatory sentence), which would be wildly disproportionate and unacceptable, even if it only ever happens to one of us.
So we ask everyone to keep up to date with this Bill for the next few months and keep discussing it.
If you are still receiving replies from MPs and Lords, please continue to post them on the ‘lobbying for UK airsoft’ group so we can ‘map the ground’. This group is very well informed and a useful asset in itself.
Be sure to Like UK Airsoft Players Union to keep up to date https://www.facebook.com/UKAPU/ but more importantly players should join UKAPU, so we can keep doing what we do http://www.ukapu.org.uk/join/
Airsoft Trade Body will have its website online soon so get involved if you run an airsoft business and want to safeguard it http://www.atb.org.uk/
Retailer membership of old stalwart UKARA is of course available from their website http://www.ukara.org.uk/index.php
Please like, comment and share.
Kind Regards,
Matt Furey-King, Frank Bothamley & Tim Wyborn
On behalf of UKAPU, UKARA & ATB
We have some great news for UK airsoft this morning. Lord Shrewsbury of the GTA has voluntarily decided to withdraw his amendment in regards to the airsoft exception from the Policing and Crime Bill 2015/16. This is the best possible outcome for UK airsoft. Lord Shrewsbury tells us he better understands airsoft now that he is properly informed, and that he is extremely keen to work with us and move forwards as a part of a unified firearms community. Please get word out and apply the brakes on this campaign, there’s nothing we need to counteract right now, the airsoft exception is not being questioned, and we certainly don’t want at this stage to create fruitless hassle for our valuable new ally. So to clarify, tweets emails and letters to Lords and Lord Shrewsbury should stop now.
When asked to contribute to this campaign the response from the UK airsoft was phenomenal. You should feel proud of the good work you’ve put in. There was a tiny element that was abusive and even threatening towards Lord Shrewsbury and needless to say, this is totally unacceptable behaviour and counterproductive, we condemn this behaviour unreservedly. Those individuals have been reported to the Police and we hope that such individuals are subject to the full weight of the law. But on the whole we saw an overwhelming positive response. I even saw some Mums writing to representatives to say tell them that airsoft had been a huge force for good in their children’s lives. I’d also like to make you aware that the 3 UK airsoft associations have done a colossal amount (most of it behind the scenes) to get us this far, and will continue to work for you over the coming months, so please keep supporting them in turn. Another group which gave us huge support was real firearms shooters, and grass roots shooting organisations such as Firearms UK. There wasn’t anything at stake for real firearms people and yet they leapt to the defence of airsofters. Bear that in mind should you see the firearms community facing hardship in the future.
Things are not finished with the PCB by any means. We still have concerns that, even with the exception in place, if you unwittingly import a slightly hot fully auto AEG, or if your fully auto HPA or GBB replicas are tested at maxed out pressure and with heavy ammo you could face section 5 firearms charges (5 years mandatory sentence), which would be wildly disproportionate and unacceptable, even if it only ever happens to one of us.
So we ask everyone to keep up to date with this Bill for the next few months and keep discussing it.
If you are still receiving replies from MPs and Lords, please continue to post them on the ‘lobbying for UK airsoft’ group so we can ‘map the ground’. This group is very well informed and a useful asset in itself.
Be sure to Like UK Airsoft Players Union to keep up to date https://www.facebook.com/UKAPU/ but more importantly players should join UKAPU, so we can keep doing what we do http://www.ukapu.org.uk/join/
Airsoft Trade Body will have its website online soon so get involved if you run an airsoft business and want to safeguard it http://www.atb.org.uk/
Retailer membership of old stalwart UKARA is of course available from their website http://www.ukara.org.uk/index.php
Please like, comment and share*.
Kind Regards,
Matt Furey-King, Frank Bothamley & Tim Wyborn
On behalf of UKAPU, UKARA & ATB
——
* Note: Facebooks system changed this post to a ‘group share’ during the day and we are unable to reverse this. The link below will take you to a post you can share so please click and share it;
Sharable post: https://www.facebook.com/UKAPU/posts/1013237018789268
Quick admin update from the UKAPU committee;
Alex Abramian has been elected to the committee South East England Regional Representative. Congratulations and thank, Alex. Minutes to be uploaded to website soon.
Also we’ve has such a run on memberships in the last 24 hours that our Registrar, Lee, has run out of UKAPU patches already! We now have more patches being made up and Lee will send off the huge pile of new membership packs when they come in.
Thanks for the push on the campaign everyone, this is a good start. Things are getting big fast though, so expect the other side to push back hard.
Finally I notice that we have more Facebook likes than members. Bronze membership is free and doesn’t take a few minutes, it’s not much harder than clicking a like button. If you are reading this you are more than likely eligible for membership, so get signed up if you haven’t yet, we need membership numbers to be able to make a difference!
Matt
