Our apologies to Daniel and the rest of the Airsoft.nu crew. We were inundated with a lot of New year greetings that we failed to notice that their greeting contained something that the Swedish Airsoft Community are already celebrating about: Gas-powered airsoft guns are now legal in Sweden as of the 2nd January 2015. Talk about having a new year blast!

According to swegaslegal2013.info, airsoft players and retailers in Sweden are having the issue on airsoft gas guns:

The effect of the problem is that the Swedish Customs are interpreting the law to a tee.

They simply do not allow gas-powered airsoft replicas into the country.

This means that Swedish retailers are unable to offer the full range of gas-powered airsoft replicas.

End consumers are unable to import gas-powered airsoft replicas directly.

In most cases, attempts to import gas-powered airsoft replicas result in either one of the following scenarios:

• The goods are returned to sender by Customs.
• The goods are seized by Customs. 
• The goods are seized and destroyed by Customs.

And in some cases people have even been charged with weapons smuggling and brought in by the Police for interrogation...

As you can imagine this result in a lot of wasted time, money and energy and is cause for a lot of frustration for all parties involved.

There is currently no enforcement of the law from anyone except the Customs Office...

And that the solution is:

Simply by changing the law from:

"... powered by air, spring or CO2." to;
"... powered by air, spring, CO2 or equivalent propellants." the problem would be solved.

With some lobbying through the petition of Nonex of the Airsoft Sverige, the Swedish Parliament approved the proposed change and set the date for such change to effect on the 2nd of January. Here's the text from Airsoft.nu in English:

From today (2nd January 2015) gas powered guns are legal in Sweden.

The new law enable airsofters to import gas powered airsoft guns (eg. Green gas) without the chance of packages being stopped and Returned by the Swedish Customs.

Shops based in Sweden will be able to have a larger range of gas powered airsoft guns than before thanks to the new law as well.

We say congratulations to the Swedish Airsoft Community for their effort to have airsoft gas guns legalised. Now, all they have to do is wait for warmer temperatures for them to enjoy their gas guns once they start receiving theirs.