Violent Crime Reduction Bill

Yes. The Bill now provides an exemption for deactivated weapons, so they will not fall under the category of realistic imitation weapons, which will be banned from being manufactured and imported. If the weapons are deactivated, those people will be able to take part in their activity. I have been keen throughout the Bill’s passage to try to ensure that we do not cast our net too wide and affect people who do extremely good work, especially with schoolchildren, by re-enacting and taking part in living history lessons to try to bring such history alive. I am conscious of the excellent work done by people in my constituency in that regard. We had a good debate on air weapons and I think that we have dealt sufficiently with the matter. I was disappointed that we did not have the chance to debate primers because I was looking forward to telling hon. Members that I had learned about not only muzzle joule energy, but percussions caps for UN metallic-cased ammunition. Our chance has now disappeared, but those matters have added to the sum of my knowledge, if not to the sum of human knowledge. We did not have the chance to discuss imitation firearms, but I am glad that we have been able to include in the Bill exemptions for television and theatrical productions, historical re-enactments and museums. We have struck a pragmatic and realistic balance between the mischief at which we are aiming, which is the misuse of realistic imitations—the use of which has increased by 66 per cent. in the past year, so we need to crack down on that—and protecting legitimate use.