Replica firearms in a public place; are they legal? Posted by Cathy

So, we have a problem. Our private loacation which we were going to use for the main part of the shoot (involving the combat scene, using plastic guns) is now unfortunately unavailable. Because of this, we need to re-think the entire video in regards to what we can and can't use.

'As of the 1st October 2007 it became illegal to manufacture, import or sell realistic imitation firearms dated from 1870 onwards.'

source: http://www.beararm.com/replica-firearm-ban.html 

This explains why all of the toy guns we've seen in the shops which we were going to use in the video have been bright orange. To get over this problem, we were simply going to paint the guns black. However, we've done some research and realised that doing this is also illegal as it is classed as an 'imitation firearm'


'If you create a replica weapon, and people believe that it is real and are threatened by it, then the punishment is the same for that as carrying a real weapon.'


So it is actually illegal to walk around with a toy gun if it looks realistic. This means that unless we find another private location, we won't be able to use guns in our video.