Australia needs your help!

[chook299]

G'day all. Let me introduce myself. My name is Bernie and earlier this year I had the pleasure to come over the water to visit family and spend six weeks getting to know your awesome country. I was introduced to airsoft by a family member here and was lucky enough to play with some of you guys. I am posting here to make a request...

I am a member of the Australian Airsoft Council and we are trying very hard to get this sport legalised in Australia (we live in a Nanny country and airsoft guns are currently illegal). Believe it or not I own real firearms but Airsoft is a prohibited weapon mainly due to full/semi auto being banned here even replicas thereof but those issues are being addressed. We are looking for support from as many international Airsoft organisations as possible before submissions to Police and Parliment but just as importantly we are looking for documentation in regards to official stats on injuries, economic benifits and your own legal requierments.

If the Admin and/or members here can help us out in regards documents/PDF's etc or could officially support our cause your allies and mates across the water would appreciate it. We currently have organisations from Malaysia, Hong Kong, Italy and Greece.

It was awesome to play with you guys, as an ex-soldier myself I really want this sport back home. Please feel free to contact me/send information to me if you can help or visit our state or national page.

My State page is https://www.facebook.com/pages/Airsoft- ... n=timeline

Our National page is https://www.facebook.com/airsoft.council

Our website is
http://www.airsoftcouncil.com.au/

Anyone that could help us out would be appreciated.

Cheers.

[Hotspur93]

Just to help the support here, this my uncle which hopefully some of you remember as the cool guy from down under that I brought to the Swamp with me earlier this year. I seriously wish to see this sport take off in Australia and I hope everyone here in the AOSC is willing to help. Thanks in advance to all those who lend support. :-)

[Dominum]

It was nice playing with you and hopefully we can be of service. I'd imagine you'd want us to draft a letter espousing the benefits of the sport, a history of injuries sustained (almost non-existent here, surprisingly), and the laws here that govern our sport? (pretty much none)

[chook299]

Mate that sounds like just the thing we need :-)

Further to that i'm trying to track down which states have the most restrictive laws in regards to ownership (registration/storage/carry etc if any to compare also if and what companies serial number their weapons if any.
I know this is a big ask but we have a fight on in our country to get this sport moving and any info we can track down, all international organisations we can harness to show support will help. we want our airsoft to be part of the world wide community and affiliate with as many as possible.

I don't ask you to bust a gut on our behalf doing this but any links you can post, or pointing in the right direction will help immensly. If you are comfortable drafting such a document that would be most welcome.
We thankyou in advance for any help and effort you can provide.

[captainkirk05]

If you are looking for track records and examples of other countries' airsoft related incidents, economy, their laws, etc., you may be better looking to the UK as an example instead, especially since Australia appears to be fairly strict on it's airsoft gun ban. The UK has a weird system where players must work their way to membership of the country's airsoft society, and until they become a member they must use bright neon colored guns. Once they prove they are responsible and have the airsoft guns for the purpose of the sport (by attending a set number of games within a set time period), they can become members and legally own the realistic looking airsoft guns without the neon colors.
While airsoft in the US has seemingly low injuries reported, incidents involving crime and death involving airsoft guns not related to the sport is much higher. Within the last month, another young boy was shot and killed by police when he pointed the barrel of his real looking airsoft AK47 at them. There are a number of other similar cases. I believe the UK's system helps to keep these types of incidents down by limiting owners of the realistic looking replicas to more responsible users.