UKAPU's Matt-Furey King gives an update on the progress of the proposed Police and Crime Bill which there was an amendment that was introduced removing the exception for airsoft. The amendment was not included but the community should be vigilant as the everything is not final until the the bill becomes law.

Today was interesting but hard work! We were previously told that airsoft would not be discussed by the committee due to the size of the bill but David noticed that a member of the Commons Committee, which is reviewing the Policing and Crime Bill, had submitted an amendment that would remove the airsoft exception from the bill, leaving us stuck to the 1 Joule lethality threshold. David and I worked through the night drafting rebuttals to this amendment, only to find that in the morning they released a hansard transcript showing that the amendment was actually rejected the previous day. We did submit some other suggestions on the Bill to the committee MPs, so all was not in vain. And if the amendment had in fact been submitted unchallenged, we wouldn't have been doing our jobs. I'm proud of the work the guys managed to do a such short notice today, even though the outcome was a little unspectacular.

Some players don't believe us when we say there groups actively working to ban airsoft in the UK, but this seems the right time to highlight that the airsoft haters really exist. They still have many friends in Westminster, and they work tirelessly to spread the idea that we are 'criminals' 'racists' 'psychopaths' etc.. They are out to crush us, nothing in this bill is set and all is still to play for. We can never stop working together as a community and pushing back if we hope to keep playing airsoft in the future.

As I mentioned, today the government published the transcript of the last Committee meeting which is quite enlightening and frankly, entertaining. I think every British airsoft player should read this through to get a snapshot of where we are. Airsoft is not obscure, nor under the radar, not forgotten, it is very much in people's minds, and some of those that are aware of us really hate us, and some of those people have quite allot of power. So please do read the extract below (but don't send the MP angry emails after, that won't help airsoft, but if you are a West Ham resident, please drop UKAPU line).

Matt Furey-King, Chairman

You can read the transcript of the Public Bill Committee regarding the proposed amendment here.