Worrying news from the West Midlands

Very old news sir! All hypothetical though since there has yet to be a case brought to court. And much that you say is incorrect.

In any case, shooting anyone with any power of weapon is an assault, technically.

Those more up on it than me will no doubt correct me but this 377fps relates to AEGs (hence site limits) and 500fps on single shot (hence site limits). A mixture of fire arms legislation and the legal term of lethality applies here!

BTW, this is why you never use airsoft guns outside of an insured airsoft site - all players have signed a disclaimer stating they are aware of the risks of airsoft. While it has dubious legal status it does reflect well in your defence should a player try to sue you!

I bet I know *which* site operator this came from...

Here's the fun bit. The 1.35J thing comes from a case back in the 60's where the "scientific testing" involved a bit of plywood and a sharpened steel dart. Obviously, is such a case were to go to court, then this would be retested using modern test methods. It has been suggested - and this comes from evidence from the FSS in NI and the FSS in Scotland - that it is closer to 4J....

Like most things, we'll only get somthing concrete when the CPS decides to prosecute someone at some time, and a new round of balistics tests are carried out...

West Midlands Police Force have confirmed that shooting someone with an IF, RIF or air rifle with an FPS > 390 is (a) assault and (b) a section five firearms offence

They can say what they want, its a court case that would confirm it.

if your playing airsoft, and have signed a disclaimer, why sue??

also all sites have a safty brief , stateing the allowed fps of any weapons, if you dont like it, you can pull out before a shots fired.

as has been said, its all about the turds who use aegs outside of airsoft

if someone popped me with an aeg/sniper doing 500 fps,or higher at a game i wouldnt be arsed as long as the site allowed it.

if some turd shot me with a 80-90 fps springer in the street, id put their teeth all over the pavement, (and claim the good old, " in fear of my life" defence )

its all about where why and how, and the police should only turn out if a complaint is made, and needs action .

Porta for king !

Even if the Police Arrested it's up to the CPS to decide if it's worth taking ot court, shooting someone on a site seems very unlikely to go to court unless there was serious injury attached to it .

I think the flawed initial post suggested that 500fps airsoft guns were illegal (which they are not despite the third hand report that they are ) - therefore not matter what disclaimer you sign on site it remains illegal. If it were illegal (which they are not) then the police would be entitled to intervene, regardless of complaint.

As things stand, a player could report an assault to the police if he was injured and felt he had been injured by an over-powered weapon, as the police would be duty bound to investigate. Very unlikely to be progressed I would have thought - I have never heard of anyone being arrested let alone charged.

Still - all theoretical since the original post on this thread is factually incorrect - deadly weapon indeed!! (Someone doesn't know the difference between lethal injury and deadly injury!). I'll say it again and shoot the messenger - incorrect information sir!

This statement appears on a number of different sites so I'm fairly sure it's accurate;

The U.K. legal muzzle energy limit for air rifles is 12 ft.lbs., and 6 ft.lbs. for air pistols. Rifles developing more than 12 ft.lbs. are subject to a Firearms Certificate. Except under special circumstances, pistols producing over 6 ft.lbs. are deemed prohibited and may not be owned.

As far as I'm aware the VCRA does not change this and any airsoft gun that is above the legally defined 'lethal' limit, (which I think is 1 joule), simply becomes treated the same as any other 'air rifle' and is therefore subject to the above law, it also legally becomes a 'firearm' and as we are not alowed automatic 'firearms' that is why we have the 1 joule limit on automatic airsoft guns.

Now I'm not sure what 12 ft.lbs. is in fps but I did read an article some time ago and if I remember correctly it equates to about 1200fps, I do remember that it was much higher than the usual 500fps limit and thinking that I wouldn't like to get hit with something of that power.

The above is my understanding of these matters if I have got anything wrong please feel free to correct me, not that you need any invitation .

You are right, which is why it doesn't fit it with the original post at all. The 'lethality' limit seems to be 1.35J IIRC - something like 377fps. Although untested this is why the generaly accepted 'safe' limit sites use from auto weapons is 1J (328fps). Again, this is for automatic weapons.

Single shot seems to fall into another area and I seem to recall the 12 ft lbs limit as well - way, way over the 500fps sites limits.

So, alls good, no change then!

CW/Pete/et al, I have to agree this does sound like bollocks to me.

I think its time the site owner that supposedly said this was named.

Anonymous statements like the one that started this thread only lead to the whole issue being muddied and are most definitely "scaremongering".

Ah yes thanks Yith, 'bollocks' was the word I should have used too!

As you can still buy an 800 fps lead firing air rifle a 500 fps 0.2grm sniper has no chance of being illegal to own, and neither are allowed to be used in a street.

Ask Steve about kids with air rifles shooting windows in on his neighbours house, the police know which house the shots came from but could not be bothered to go to the house and investigate.