Quote Originally Posted by andrewM View Post
The people who collect this type of rifle - ie replicas of weapons that are designed to kill humans - is that they have a completely different mind-set to those like us. We keep alive a heritage which embraces engineering skills, target shooting, vermin control, field target competition and such like whereas these people are into paramilitary activities, which is not our thing.

Alas, one cannot legislate against this sort of thing but it does have a knock-on effect on those like us, by way of reflection. I sympathise entirely with your viewpoint.
I agree with this view. I've always thought it was only a matter of time before old airguns would get swept up in a general antipathy towards modern military-looking airguns, replicas etc - not that I personally have anything whatsoever against them.

In the UK, until 1997 CO2 bulbs were excluded as a power source, whose compactness lends itself to replicas.

When the only way to power an airgun was with a cumbersome pumping arm or spring cocking lever (aside from PCPs, obviously), the guns tended not to look like military guns at all, and were therefore less 'scary' to the ignorant...