As an Airsoft player or Retailer it is your sport or living which the VCR Act had threatened to extinguish.
It is all of our responsibility to make sure we do not cause the exception we gained to be removed by foolish acts which although may not technically be breaking the law might lead to a threat to the concessions we works so hard to gain.

An example is purchase and gift of a RiF, this may be quite legal, but to do this with intent to supply non registered person would not be if in reality it was just a back door sale.

If you wish to import your own Airsoft replicas it is very important to make sure that you can verify with the new Boarder Agency your credentials to legally import.

If you cannot do this the Boarder Agency will destroy your goods without refund.

For Imitation Firearms (IF's) you must be able to prove you are over 18 years of age.

For Realistic Imitation Firearms you must be able to prove you are a member of an insured airsoft game site or an insured member of a recognised re enactment society and be over 18.

UKARA has no scheme for membership of under 18 year old airsoft players.

I keep getting this reported to me that we do, but we do not, and have no reason to do so as under 18 year old's cannot buy RiFs.

Quote from the last meeting at the Home Office ( poorly worded )

Airsoft is still here and we are still playing our great sport, hobby, or pastime however you wish to view it.

Still instructing youth of all ages how lethal real gun could be if you were involved in real armed conflict.

Most players realise that when you call "dead" in a game, in reality there would be no re-spawn and the effects would be permanent.

Perhaps morbid for a soon to be Happy New Year but I fear for any future possible legislation in which our type of usage of toy guns might catch any fall out of ill-conceived new laws or amendments.

This was held on the 12th of November at Tewkesbury.

The board members were re-elected.

The meeting lasted 2 hours and covered a great deal of practical issues in regards to database operations and efficiency modifications to streamline checks on eligibility of, players,sites and retailers.

Other topics covered was a full discussion of the Home Office meeting earlier in the year, general state of the industry, especially in regards to RoSH compliance and the lack of a level playing field throughout the EEC.

We get frequent emails about airsoft license or UKARA licenses.

There is no such thing as a UKARA License or an Airsoft License.

UKARA registers players to a database which can be looked up by participating retailers and queried by Customs etc. Any fee you may pay is to the game site for their administration or membership card provided by them, not to UKARA

The part of the Violent Crime Reduction Act regarding airsoft is related to sales.
Sales have been restricted from the general public by making the seller liable for prosecution.

An airsoft player is a legitimate player . e.g. purchaser. if he is a current member of a currently insured game site.

Membership cards are of no value unless they can be checked at the moment of sale to make sure the customer is a valid purchaser.

A system working on membership cards has no value to an airsoft retailer, the membership card has no value as the person on it could have been struck off the membership of the game site that morning, or the game sites insurance could have expired the previous day.

Player renewal was changed after request from Game site operators and approval of the Home Office.

Players are not renewed on the database due to purchases of RiFs, this side of the system no longer operates.

Players can only be renewed by the game site they are a member of.

Every registered game site should have access to their own section of the database and be able to update players details and registration with a simple one click.

We are getting reports of RiFs being imported in two halves and separate consignments and IFs coloured with removable paint, the new Boarder Services and Police are now taking an active interest in this and other attempted breaches of the spirit of the VCR Act and will be clamping down.

One wonders if there is some kind of death wish going on, we fought hard and long to get the special defence for Airsoft yet idiots seem determined to throw it away.

A meeting was held on 16th of June in Oxford of the committee and some ordinary members of UKARA, also invited for discussion later in the day were Ken Elston of UKASGB and a representative of a UKARA registered game site.

The majority of the discussion was about possible technical modifications to improve and enhance the workings of the database.

Indications are that the majority of retailers are happy with the way the database is performing, as designed, to allow safe sale of RiFs to properly entitled customers.