Help Get Airsoft Gas Guns Legalized In Sweden

Logan

29 Jan 2013

I never realized that the Swedish Airsoft Community, vibrant as it is, since it's also one of the most active airsoft communities in the world, are encountering an issue with regards to the purchase of the gas-powered airsoft guns, as those powered by gas such as red, green, Top, are not allowed and thus any airsoft gun that is purchased, especially from outside of Sweden, gets confiscated by Swedish Customs. Only airsoft guns powered by spring, air, or CO2 are allowed and authorities are interpreting the law strictly.

Thus, Chris Jonsson gave us a heads up about a petition that is now up to have gas powered airsoft guns legalized in Sweden. If you want to support the petition, you can do the following:

Sign the Petition at Change.org: "Department of Justice, Sweden, Legalize gas-powered airsoft replicas". The petition should be signed primarily by Swedish airsoft players since the local players will be given more weight when the petition is reviewed. So if you know some Swedes who play airsoft, wherever in the world, get them to sign the petition. But of course, if you want to sign it too, even if you're not from Sweden, then feel free to put in your name to support the players.
Help spread the word out about the petition and help people understand the issue by giving the link about the problem which is at http://www.swegaslegal2013.info/.

We're publishing here the full text from http://www.swegaslegal2013.info/ so you can also just immediately go to the petition page:

Please help the Swedish Airsoft Community in legalizing gas-powered airsoft-replicas!
Sign our petition and spread the word!

The Problem

The problem right now is that gas-powered airsoft replicas are technically illegal.

This is simply due to how the law is worded.

It explicitly lists the allowed power sources as spring, air or CO2.

Thus implicitly excluding all other propellants, such as gas (commonly referred to as Green Gas or Top Gas).

Now as most of you who are familiar with airsoft knows, gas-powered airsoft replicas and CO2-powered airsoft replicas work on the same principle of expanding gasses.

With the exception of the specific propellant, they work exactly the same.

There really is no logical, legal or practical reason for the gas-powered airsoft replicas to be illegal.

Gas-powered airsoft replicas account for a majority (approximatly ~90%) of the market share within the segment of "gas blow back" airsofts (also referred to as GBB / GBBRs).

CO2-powered airsoft replicas account for the remaining share.

Airsoft replicas in the "gas blow back" segment in turn accounts for a major share of the overall airsoft replica market (approximatly ~30-40%).

The Effects

The effect of the problem is that the Swedish Customs are interpreting the law to a tee.

They simply do not allow gas-powered airsoft replicas into the country.

This means that Swedish retailers are unable to offer the full range of gas-powered airsoft replicas.

End consumers are unable to import gas-powered airsoft replicas directly.

In most cases, attempts to import gas-powered airsoft replicas result in either one of the following scenarios:

The goods are returned to sender by Customs.
The goods are seized by Customs.
The goods are seized and destroyed by Customs.

And in some cases people have even been charged with weapons smuggling and brought in by the Police for interrogation...

As you can imagine this result in a lot of wasted time, money and energy and is cause for a lot of frustration for all parties involved.

There is currently no enforcement of the law from anyone except the Customs Office...

The Solution

The solution to the problem is very simple.

Simply by changing the law from:

"... powered by either air, spring or CO2." to:

"... powered by either air, spring, CO2 or equivalent propellants." the problem would be solved.

As a matter of fact, the Swedish Government, Parliament and Department of Justice have all the necessary paperwork and preparations for exactly this change.

It has been concluded and proposed already as a valid change in the law.

However, due to the relative insignificant nature of this problem, no action has been taken as of yet and the law remains the same.

The Swedish airsoft community has been fighting for this cause on and off again for the past several years in hopes of a change.

We currently have an open dialog with the responible parties within the Government, Parliament and Department of Justice regarding this matter, but we need your support to complete the mission!

How You Can Help

You can help us out primarily by signing our petition and spreading the word!

If we are able to raise global awareness of the problem to the Government, Parliament, Department of Justice and Customs we have a very good chance of getting the law implemented, and the problem resolved once and for all!

Some of the actions you can take to help us are: