question Deacts advice please - buying & selling on this forum...?

I'm unclear on the law as it stands in the UK right now on buying and selling deacts.

There's been a few occasions on here recently with people either selling or seeking deacts - Lee Enfield No4, GPMG, Thompson.

Is it OK until the new regulations on deact specs become UK law to buy/sell deacts that do not yet comply with the 'new' deact standards (pinned mags, etc)? I thought not, but am not certain.

If it's not OK - who commits an offence; the buyer, the seller, both?

Not trying to rain on anybody's parade - just seeking some clarity.

Thanks.

Have you read this thread?

http://www.gunstar.co.uk/bsa-smle-no-1-mk3-bolt-action-303-rifles/rifles/898503?utm_source=emailWebsite&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=search_alerts&utm_term=_&email_stats_id=2285589

as far as I'm aware it's not law yet but is about to so get an older spec now while you can.

Ok, here is how I understand it... :-D

The EU Regulation has become part of national law of all Member States (and that includes the UK) the day it was published (April 8th 2016), without the need of having to implement it. So strictly speaking it has been illegal to sell, gift etc. any deac that doesn't comply with the rules states in the Regulation since then.

Practically speaking the Regulation as-is will be impossible to enforce ofcourse, and efforts are now being made to have pre-Regulation national standards of deactivation that are of the same level as the level prescribed in the Regulation, accepted as equal so that any weapons that have been deactivated under that older national standard will be accepted by the other Member States as equal and as such comply to the Regulation. In many cases it would technically impossible to upgrade to the new deac standard anyway.

Strictly speaking I think that means that since April 8th last year it is illegal to sell any deac that doesn't comply to the new Regulation, but you are allowed to keep them if you already own them. Ofcourse this is impossible to enforce and police know that, so it is unlikely it will have any consequence for the moment at least if it happens anyway. That doesn't mean it isn't against the law though, so use your own judgement.

There is a decent change UK new-spec standard will be declared equal to the Regulation's standard which will be great news (then you can buy, sell and export them without problems) but I'm pretty sure that won't be the case for the old-spec standard. That means those will be legal to own, but not to sell etc. unless brought up to the new standard. The normal consequence will be a underground market...

In short, the whole thing is still a work in progress and nobody really knows how it will finalize.

What a mess and very sad.

At Stoneleigh 2 weeks ago as far as I could tell there was no difference to a year ago ie - all specs were being sold Business as usual.

I did notice some new spec Thompsons with a tiny blob of weld holding the magazine in place, looked utterly ridiculous.