Statutory Instruments
2023 No. 768
Arms And Ammunition, England And Wales
The Firearms (Air Weapons) (England and Wales) Rules 2023
Made
6th July 2023
Coming into force
31st July 2023
The Secretary of State makes the following Rules in exercise of the powers conferred by section 53(1)(c) of the Firearms Act 1968( 1 ).
Citation, commencement and extent
1. —(1) These Rules may be cited as the Firearms (Air Weapons) (England and Wales) Rules 2023 and come into force on 31st July 2023.
(2) These Rules extend to England and Wales.
Storage of air weapons
2. —(1) For the purposes of section 24ZA(1) of the Firearms Act 1968 ( 2 ) (“ the Act ”), “reasonable precautions to prevent any person under the age of eighteen from having an air weapon( 3 ) with him” include storing an air weapon when it is not in use or is being cleaned, repaired, tested or in transit—
(a) securely to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, access to the air weapon by a person under the age of eighteen;
(b) out of sight of a person under the age of eighteen; and
(c) separately from compatible ammunition( 4 ).
(2) This rule does not apply to a rifle to which section 27A of the Act( 5 ) applies.
Chris Philp
Minister of State
Home Office
6th July 2023
1968 c. 27 . Section 53 was amended by section 61(3)(a) of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 (c. 17) . There are other amendments to the Firearms Act 1968 which are not relevant to these Rules.
Section 24ZA(1) was inserted by section 46(2) of the Crime and Security Act 2010 (c. 17) .
See section 1(3)(b) of the Firearms Act 1968 in relation to the expression “air weapon”.
See section 57(2) of the Firearms Act 1968 in relation to the word “ammunition”.
Section 27A was inserted by section 61 of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019.