I thought I’d add a bit of text that Pablo posted in the VCR Bill section of the forums. There’s been a lot of questions lately about the bill, its affect and when it comes into play.
My understanding so far is that under the proposed scheme (set to come into play for April 2007) sites are encouraged to register with the ABA, then when a player goes to buy equipment their registration is validated against a known list of players.
The compulsory comencement dates set by government are 6th April and 1st October. The ABA have been told early spring so they assume the 6th april is the relevant date for us. The regulations must be distributed at least 21 days before that date, but as yet there is still no legal definition of a RIF (Realistic Imitation Firearm, as opposed to an IF). The ABA have a meeting with the Home Office next week.
At present, the ABA need more support from sites. The UKASGB which represents sites is working with the ABA to establish a scheme whereby players must register with a site in order to join a national database of players. Retailers (represented by UKARA) can then check this database to ensure they sell to airsoft skirmishers (to whom the exemption applies) and that they are complying with the law. If your regular site doesn’t sign up to the scheme, you won’t be able to register and therefore you won’t be able to buy guns from 6th April.
You can find the ABA website here, with the link to register to access their forums is hidden at the bottom of the page. We’d add more but as things stand news releases are few and just about all that’s relevant has been posted by Pablo at the top of the VCR forums.
At the moment there are obviously quite a few questions that remain unanswered which include how EU/HK/Japan/USA imports will work, direct EU imports across the border, customs declarations, and who is going to keep control of the proposed registration scheme. If you want to ask relevant questions I’d recommend registering on the ABA site and asking them there. We’ll add anything that’s noteworthy that is sent our way.
