Woogie12
02-19-2004, 03:12 PM
I wrote a letter to abcnews.com about one of their articles on paintball. I was wondering what you guys thought. Here's the article: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/Living/Paintball_dangers_040114-1.html
And here is my letter:
I recently viewed your article entitled “Painful Pellets”. Your article is filled with misinformation. Paintball is a fun, safe sport when played correctly. Many good points about paintball were left out, like many rules and regulations for approved fields. Inexperience players not knowing what they were doing caused many of those injuries. At nearly all paintball fields, rules are strictly enforced. Some of these rules include having your goggles on anywhere a marker is being fired and barrel plugs in when not playing or chronographing your marker. Chronographing is using a chronograph to ensure that your marker is firing under the safe international fps (feet per second) limit of 300 fps. Your statement about paintball markers firing as fast as bullets is not true. I do not know of any effective firearm that fires at 300 fps. The bullet would not have any effective range or power. Paintball is one of the safest sports being played with fewer injuries than football, hockey, and even golf.
This is not a fair judgment of the sport of paintball. If someone beats another person to death with a bat, is the problem with baseball? No, and it should be the same for paintball. Paintball is the 3rd most popular extreme sport right now. It is a fast, fun, and action-packed sport that is extremely safe when played correctly. Any sport can be dangerous when played incorrectly. When you play football without a helmet, you can severely injure your head. The same goes for paintball when you do not wear a mask. Should paintball be considered any more dangerous? Most of these injuries were not only cause by the sport being played incorrectly, but also because of senseless vandalism. These vandals should not give the sport of paintball a bad name. Next time, please consider the good points about your subject and try and include them in your article. You missed many points on the good side of paintball.
And here is my letter:
I recently viewed your article entitled “Painful Pellets”. Your article is filled with misinformation. Paintball is a fun, safe sport when played correctly. Many good points about paintball were left out, like many rules and regulations for approved fields. Inexperience players not knowing what they were doing caused many of those injuries. At nearly all paintball fields, rules are strictly enforced. Some of these rules include having your goggles on anywhere a marker is being fired and barrel plugs in when not playing or chronographing your marker. Chronographing is using a chronograph to ensure that your marker is firing under the safe international fps (feet per second) limit of 300 fps. Your statement about paintball markers firing as fast as bullets is not true. I do not know of any effective firearm that fires at 300 fps. The bullet would not have any effective range or power. Paintball is one of the safest sports being played with fewer injuries than football, hockey, and even golf.
This is not a fair judgment of the sport of paintball. If someone beats another person to death with a bat, is the problem with baseball? No, and it should be the same for paintball. Paintball is the 3rd most popular extreme sport right now. It is a fast, fun, and action-packed sport that is extremely safe when played correctly. Any sport can be dangerous when played incorrectly. When you play football without a helmet, you can severely injure your head. The same goes for paintball when you do not wear a mask. Should paintball be considered any more dangerous? Most of these injuries were not only cause by the sport being played incorrectly, but also because of senseless vandalism. These vandals should not give the sport of paintball a bad name. Next time, please consider the good points about your subject and try and include them in your article. You missed many points on the good side of paintball.