Film, Theatre, Museums, Galleries, & Television

Wolf Armouries offers a highly competitive rental scheme for film and TV purposes, however, before you rent, there are a few things you need to know about Realistic Imitation Firearms, the Violent Crime Reduction Act, and our store policy on Rentals. If you're interested, please read on!

The Violent Crime Reduction Act & Realistic Imitation Firearms:

The Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 restricts the sale of Realistic Imitation Firearms within the United Kingdom.

Under Part 2, Section 36 of this legislation, it is an offence to:
- Manufacture a Realistic Imitation Firearm,
- Sell/purchase a Realistic Imitation Firearm,
- Import a Realistic Imitation Firearm, or,
- Modify an Imitation Firearm (unrealistic, usually transparent or brightly coloured) so that it becomes a Realistic Imitation Firearm.

The Specific Defences (Sometimes Referred to as Exemptions) to the Violent Crime Reduction Act:

Under Part 2, Section 37 of the VCRA, a number of specific defences have been granted to Museums/Galleries, Theatres and companies involved in Film and Television production.

While purchasing/importing/renting still technically remains an offence under the VCRA, these defences effectively grant a number of specific purposes a defense from the offences laid down by the Violent Crime Reduction Act, making them eligible to purchase/rent items.

These specific defences are outlined below:

37 Specific defences applying to the offence under s. 36:
(2) Those purposes are—
(a) the purposes of a museum or gallery;
(b) the purposes of theatrical performances and of rehearsals for such performances;
(c) the production of films (within the meaning of Part 1 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48) - see section 5B of that Act);
(d) the production of television programmes (within the meaning of the Communications Act 2003 (c. 21) - see section 405(1) of that Act);

As these uses are granted a specific defence to the VCRA, Wolf Armouries is happy to rent or sell Realistic Imitation Firearms to those companies that are able to prove that they fall into one of these categories.

Renting Versus Purchasing:

If your company is looking for Realistic Imitation Firearms for any of the purposes outlined in the specific defence section above, there are two possible options available to you; renting or purchasing.

Renting is available to everyone who is covered under the above specific defences, and is, by far, the most popular solution, as it offers a fast, convenient and cost effective option for those seeking Realistic Imitation Firearms for a short/medium duration (generally up to a month in length), ranging from small companies working on independent films, to large scale production companies, international broadcasters and full-scale movie producers.

In addition to this, renting items provides added benefits in the form of avoiding all difficulties found when disposing of the RIFs at the end of the project when they are no longer needed.

- Simply gifting/selling the item to a member of staff or any other individual violates the VCRA (as only the company itself is eligible to own the item)
- Throwing something that looks so much like a real gun in the bin can lead to problems with the police/local council.
- Storing un-needed Realistic Imitation Firearms can take up valuable office space!

For those needing the items for especially long periods of time (such as Theatre and Movie producers), renting items may not be the most cost effective solution, and as such, your company may be seeking to purchase items instead.

Wolf Armouries is happy to sell Realistic Imitation Firearms to those companies who prove they are eligible for one of the specific defences listed above, however, we enforce the additional requirement that the company must be able to demonstrate that it has some form of secure permanent storage facility for the items.

This additional requirement of safe and secure storage is a policy designed to ensure that airsoft guns sold as Realistic Imitation Firearms remain securely and legally in the custody of the specific defence eligible companies that they are sold to.

Wolf Armouries Specific Defence Purchase/Rental Requirements:

Those companies wishing to purchase/rent from us must provide us with the following:

1) A headed letter from the production company which must include:
- The company's registration number,
- The company's address details,
- A point of contact within the company,
- An explanation of who the company is,
- An explanation of what items the company requires, and
- An explanation of the purpose for which the items are needed.

2) Two forms of ID belonging to the person who will be held responsible for the Realistic Imitation Firearms being rented; one of which being photographic ID, and the other being proof of address.

Once these items have been provided, there are a number of security and verification steps that we must undertake on our end, before we can authorise the transaction. Once they have been completed, a Customer Service Representative will contact you with their outcome.

For those companies wishing to purchase items, once the above steps have been completed, the remainder of the transaction will be executed as if you were a regular purchaser. For those wishing to rent items, please read the following paragraphs about our rental policy.

Wolf Armouries Rental Prices:

All rental charges are calculated based on a percentage value of the goods being rented, multiplied by the number of nights that they are away from Wolf Armouries. The percentage values are as follows:
- The first 5 days of rental will be charged at a rate of 10% of the value of the rented goods per night.
- For those rentals lasting longer than 5 days, from day six onwards, the fee will be reduced to a rate of 5% of the value of
   the rented goods per night, for the remaining duration of the rental.

We are happy to rent goods for as much, or as little time as customers need, however we operate a minimum invoice charge of £45 for all rentals, which covers the administration costs of renting items and performing the security/eligibility checks on the renting company. Put simply, this charge means that if a relatively low value item, such as a hand gun (which would be charged at £10 per night) was only rented for one night, then the total cost of the rental would be £45.

Wolf Armouries Rental Terms & Conditions:

We at Wolf Armouries don't believe in burdening our customers with epic lists of Terms & Conditions, however, we ask that when you rent items from us, you treat them with respect, and return them to us in the condition in which they were rented to you.

For this reason, we must enforce a small list of Terms & Conditions:
- All goods must be returned to us in the state that we provided them to you.
- Any damages to goods will incur a series of significant fines, charged as percentage values of the damaged goods, which
   are designed to compensate us for repairs/loss of goods value.
- A full deposit for the retail value of the goods will be taken when the items are rented, which will be refunded to you when
    the items are returned to us.
- All Realistic Imitation Firearms that have been rented are deemed 'rental items' and remain the property of Wolf Armouries.
- All items that are deemed rental items must be returned to the shop when they are no longer needed, failure to return
   items may lead to legal action being taken in order to recover our property, and any rental fees owed.

If you understand and agree all of this, and you wish to rent Realistic Imitation Firearms from us, please contact the shop directly on 0870 754 9653, and speak to one of our Customer Service Representatives, who will be happy to take you through our rental terms, and explain our highly competitive pricing structure.