Excellent news from the firearms stakeholder meeting. Vicky Ford MEP (who is the designated rapporteur- the person given responsibility to review amendments before its put to a vote) clarified that the intention of the proposal is not to reclassify airsoft replicas as category C firearms. The EU say they only wish to reclassify certain blank firing replicas. Ms. Ford informed our representative that they will forward an ammendment to sort out the wording of the relevant section. The proposal as currently written will reclassify all replicas, regardless of the intention.
The threat isn’t entirely gone as they haven’t written any amendments yet and MEPs still need to vote on whether to adapt the amendment, so we’ll stay engaged with the process and we ask you to keep up to date on the situation. But things are looking positive.
I also ask that you keep standing with our cousins in the real firearms community, as a large chunk of their pastime still hangs in the balance. We expect that the amendment which we have requested will be one of very many.
Matt Furey-King
Chairman UK Airsoft Players Union