On October 1st 2007, the government clamped down on the sale of guns in the UK - airsoft
was part of this and we've been hit twice by the new laws - because airsoft guns are both
air powered, and are realistic imitations of the real thing.
It can be terribly confusing - what's allowed, what's not, and where you stand in it.
Rumours have been flying around, people are giving out badly worded information for
various reasons, so we thought we'd clarify things for you in plain and simple English.
For Players:
- You must now be a registered player at a site that holds insurance in order to purchase guns in the future, either by mail order or in person.
- We need to ensure you are a registered player before we can sell to you - which means you either need to get yourself on the UKARA database for remote checks, or carry an identity card issued to you by your site for face-to-face sales.
- Sales of some high powered airsoft guns are now classified as air guns. Mail Order sales of air guns are now banned - which means you need to visit us and collect your gun in person. Please check with your retailer what limits they are working to.
- The UKARA database can only be used for one purpose - to check a customer is a legitimate player. The database holds only 3 pieces of information, all of which is hidden unless one of the three is entered as part of a check. Your name, post code and membership number at your site.
For Site Operators:
- You do not need to be part of any organisation or governing body, or be regulated in any way.
- We encourage you to remain independent - especially site operators - there is no need to pay any money to become part of any other scheme, it will achieve nothing. All you need to do is send in your details to a UKARA member and participate in the player registration scheme - how you conduct your membership is down to you although you should be aware of the conditions within the Specific Defence.
- This is a method to make future purchases simple for your players - and you can helpwith this. It benefits you as a site operator too!
The Restrictions:
Part 1. Realistic Imitation Firearms.
Called RIFs for short, these include any gun or weapon-like object that could be pointed at a member of the public or a police officer and believed to be real - such as a pistol, rifle, grenade, mine or rocket launcher. The law now bans the sale, importing or manufacturing of RIFs. There are two ways around this provided for by law, being, a) it is “unrealistic”, i.e. transparent or of a highly bright orange or pink colour, or b) it is only sold to a legitimate airsoft player.
Part 2. Air Guns
In addition to the regulations above, if the airsoft gun has a high muzzle velocity, it
becomes classified as an air gun as well. That means that, as well as complying with our "legitimate skirmisher" checks above, we need to abide by new air guns laws. Any retailer wishing to continue selling air guns, needs to be a registered firearms dealer. The regulations also restrict the sale of these higher powered guns to in-person sales only, i.e. no more mail order. You will need to visit us, with your identity, in order for us to sell these guns to you.
- Individual Players: Step 1 - Obtaining Membership to a Participating Skirmish Site
- Individual Players: Step 2 - Registering Nationally for Future Purchases
- Individual Players: Step 3 - Process of Purchasing
- Skirmish Sites: Registering Your Players & Making Them Members
- Skirmish Sites: The Membership Scheme Criteria
Individual Players: Step 1 - Obtaining Membership to a Skirmish Site
Go to a Site Involved in the Scheme
As a player, you want choice and freedom - basically you want to be able to carry on buying those nice bits of airsoft kit just like you did before October 1. We're involved in a system that lets you do just that, and it's supported by all major UK retailers together, working as one so that very thing is possible, it’s called UKARA.
Visit this link where a complete list of UKARA participating game sites is shown.
Find your closest site and go there to get registered - as a player, there is absolutely no point in becoming a member of a "go it alone" site, even if they say they run their own scheme. In the bigger picture, your purchase may not be accepted by any number of retailers, and as we've said, you want to retain the choice yourself. A UKARA registered site shows professionalism, and you know that you will get a professional membership - one that will see you right wherever you choose to shop. Vote with your feet - or get your local site to
participate straight away.
Obtaining a Membership with Your Site
The overall membership scheme is down to each individual site to operate, how they
choose. They may choose to offer walk-on discounts to members of the site, you may be charged an annual fee, you may or may not get given an ID card for face to face purchases - this is down to each individual site, and you should ask them for more details. The only 'regulation' here is that your site must hold insurance - not all do, so it is best to check as it is pointless becoming a member of a site that doesn't. The "probationary period" put on membership in the regulations is an attendance record of 3 site visits in a period of 2 months, after you have attended in that time frame, the site can call you a member.
Individual Players: Step 2 - Registering Nationally for Future Purchases
Getting Your Details to all the Retailers
When you have your membership, you can buy again! Hoorah! But, you need to get yourself
on the database first (which can be searched by any participating UKARA retailer when you
buy - and that’s most, if not all!). Download this form as soon as you have your
membership, fill out the details and pop it in the post to us, or hand it to us in person.
We enter the details from your form, and your membership number can then be seen by
any UKARA retailer for any future purchase you make. We can verify you as an airsoft
player remotely, and things are back to normal.
We must stress that your details do not enter a black hole accessible only to nasty people,
police, government, or even us friendly people at UKARA - most of the information collected
is just in case we need to contact you because we can't read your writing - only a select
amount of that information is input - and once it is input, only "Mr. Gigabyte" (the
computer) will ever see it again - all that is stored is your name, postal code and
membership number - and one of the three bits needs to be input before the any of the
other is displayed - the only benefit being for searching your name or post code before
sending out your new gun.
From the point you send in your form to us, and we enter you, buying should be much like
it was a year ago, with one small addition - you quote your membership number when
ordering, and that's it.
Seems like an awful headache doesn't it, but when we say it like this, it's quite straightforward.
Go to participating game site, get membership. Fill out UKARA form, send it to us.
Quote membership number when ordering. Job Done.
Individual Players: Step 3 - Process of Purchasing
Remote Sales (Low Powered Airsoft Guns)
Assuming you've got your site membership, and have sent in your form to us, we'll talk
through a normal sale from this point onwards.
On our checkout now you'll notice a special box about half way down for you to enter your
site membership number into. All you have to do is put this number in, exactly the same
way as you need to put a credit card number in! When we come to invoice your order we
will search this number on the UKARA database, hopefully it will come up with your
matching details and we'll send out your order as per usual. That's all there is to it - could
you ask for a simpler system that everyone uses? We didn't think so.
Face to Face Sales (Higher Powered Airsoft Guns)
Things have changed here, as we can no longer post these out to you. If you want to buy
one of these guns from us, you'll need to visit us to pick it up, along with a photo ID and
proof of address (god, more papers!). In order to comply with RIF regulations as well, you
still need to be a member of a participating skirmish site.
We suggest that if you live at the other end of the country to us, and want to buy
something fruity we have on sale, you buy it as standard and upgrade it yourself - that we
can do.
Otherwise, we welcome visitors who want to collect guns, or get them upgraded by our
expert technicians here on site.
Skirmish Sites: Registering Your Players & Making Them Members
Why
Your skirmish site is a business, and participating can actually gain you players, potentially
life long players, for very little work. This means increased revenue from entry fees -
certainly whilst they are attending three times to gain membership, and if they like your
site, it could be every other week from now on! If your neighbouring site isn't participating
and you are - where do you think their members are going to go? To you of course.
Similarly, if you don't participate and the site next to you is, where are your players going
to go?
If you choose to charge your players for an annual membership, you will also gain
membership fees - this covers any administration you need to do - and a player that joins
your site and gains membership will usually become loyal to you.
How
To join the scheme, all you need to do is send in just one form (here) to a UKARA registered
retailer, such as us - this form lists your site details, and we also need a copy of your
insurance certificate to ensure you are, as the government put it, a "legitimate airsoft site".
Only sites with a minimum of third party liability insurance can participate, so if you don't
have this, you may want to look at getting it - you don't need to join any organisation to do
this - just call the insurance company!
Once we have these papers, we'll get you active as a participant straight away, your site will
appear on the UKARA website for potential players to see, and shortly after you'll receive a
UKARA stamp with your membership prefix on (e.g. GZA). This stamp is provided free of
charge by UKARA, and is used to validate players membership forms.
The Membership Scheme
How you choose to run your membership scheme is entirely down to you, UKARA isn't a
regulatory or "governing" body - we just want to be able to continue to sell, as much as
your players want to buy new kit.
You may take this opportunity to increase your walk-on prices and offer a discount to
members, or invest the membership fees in your site, or maybe you just don't want any
hassle and want to keep things as simple as possible - however you choose to do it, it's
your site, and you're the boss!
Skirmish Sites: The Membership Scheme Criteria
Government Criteria:
The government have put one regulation on who you call a member - it must be a player
that has visited your site a minimum of three times in a two month period. After they have
attended this amount, you may take them on board as full members and certify them for
submission onto the UKARA database via their player registration form.
UKARA Scheme Criteria:
The UKARA database needs just one thing to remain the same across your membership
system, and that is the membership number. The format for this is three letters followed by
five numbers, e.g. ABC12345. The first three letters denote your site - e.g. GZA is Ground
Zero Airsoft. We can assign this three letter prefix when you send in your registration forms,
and let you know what it will be. We suggest you work sequentially from 00001.