Matt Furey-King here. I'd like to announcing that I'm stepping down as Chairman of UK Airsoft Players Union. When I returned to the role as Chairman in 2015 my intention was twofold; to get the association back on its feet, and to make sure we had player representation throughout the Policing and Crime Bill passage. My return was only ever supposed to be temporary, the committee knew my intention from the start was to stand aside on the commencement date of the new law. So here we are.

I'm pretty disappointed that the PCA is still an open subject, that we still need to push the government for clarifications in order to find out how to comply with the new law. There's some grey area which I think will one-day spell real trouble for some poor airsoft player. As much as I'm dying to help with this situation, I have to call it a day and move on. Unfortunately, other parts of my life have been suffering due to lack of attention, I've been so distracted by all this airsoft politics going on these last 2 years. My girlfriend Po Ling has been very accommodating but even her impressive patience with me is wearing thin! So it's time to get my priorities straight. The way I see it I've done my bit and to be honest other people now need to step up to the plate.

An important update for the UK mainland airsofters! Finally both UKAPU and UKARA are able to tell you some good news about the draft UK law affecting airsoft.

"At the start of the year the government released the Policing and Crime Bill (PCB), which included a clause to set the lethal threshold at 1 Joule of muzzle energy. This would mean that a barrelled device would be essentially regarded as an air gun if it had muzzle energy of over 1J. In 2015 the law commission suggested (based on input from UKARA and UKAPU) that airsoft replicas should be allowed an exemption from the 1J lethal threshold, as 1J would be far too low for our needs. The government accepted this and wrote it into the PCB."

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