Someone I know lost his eye to a paintball. But did he deserve it?

[paint magnet]

Well, one of my friends just bought a new Spyder Imagine and was shooting it for the second or third time, when it jammed and he looked down the barrel, neither him or any of his friends wearing a mask, and it went off and shot out his left eye. There is a chance he can get partial vision back in about a year, but only with surgery.

Of course I feel awful about this, and especially because everyone at school asks about his eye and he always replies that it got shot out with a paintball gun. Naturally, to the non playing crowd and the players who don't know much (namely about 900 of them), you can see how this sounds. Every teacher also seems to comment on how dangerous paintball is and how stupid it is.


Like I said I feel bad about this, but there's more. The day before it happened, (day before halloween), he said he was going to go out and shoot houses and trick or treaters and cop cars on halloween like he had done the year before. Of course I told him not to do that because "you'll shoot someone's eye out" and get paintball banned and give it a bad reputation. I didn't expect that he would shoot out his own eye. Do you think he deserved it? I have very little doubt that he would not have shot trick or treaters and houses or that he has learned his lesson. Now not only is one of my friends missing an eye, but nearly the whole school is afraid of playing paintball and comments on how stupid it is.

[toymyster]

Though no one "deserves" to lose any part of their body, personaly, I can't feel sorry for this guy!!! The worst part is as you said, he'll go around and say "I got my eye shot out with a paintball gun" since he will probably blame paintball for his lack of resposibility and common sense!!!

[Kevmaster]

wow, sorry to be an **explicative deleted**(heh, you jay and silent bob fans will like that), but hes an idiot!


sorry, just my venting on thoughst about reproduction...lol! dont let him into OUR gene pool!

[RetroEclipseMan]

Sorry to here that man. What a coincidence or just some bad Karma. He shouldn't be going around saying he got his eye shot out by a paintball gun though. Or at least say it was his own fault.

[magman007]

hey, he was stupid, not wearing a mask, and dumb enough to look down the barrel, i fele he got waht he had comming to him. the olny sad thing is that he will blame it on paintball, and turn people away. Sorry, but i feeel he got wahat was comming to him

[DaosBeoulve]

I have a friend who got shot in the eye by a paintball gun. The game was over, everyone had their guns sitting down (no barrel plugs, however), and when they went to get ready for another game, a friend of his picked up his gun by the grip frame. Didn't have the safety on, and he was only about ten feet away from the guy who he shot in the eye. Freak accident, but it could have easily been prevented. Of course, this was before I started really playing with the guys, and when I started playing, everyone had to have barrel plugs in. I'm a safety nazi, I guess.

My friend ended up having two surgeries, and after 5 years, he still only has 20% of the vision in that eye.

I can't say that he got what he deserved. No one deserves to lose their vision, even if they did something stupid. I hope he recovers as much vision as possible and that he realizes it was his fault that he was shot in the eye. Hopefully, his statement will become, "I shot my eye out with a paintball gun" since it was indeed his fault...

[spazzed]

No-one deserves that. What he deserved was to get caught by the cops and thrown in Juvie for awhile.

As for being a safety nazi, that's why you're an RA ;)

[magking1971]

Stupid is that stupid does:rolleyes:

[Ov3rmind]

I'm not going to try and sound nice, he deserved it. He didn't respect the safety rules, the public, his equipment, or paintball in general. He got what was coming to him.

[HoppysMag]

not to be mean but some parts of the gene pool need chlorine. its people like that that could get paintball banned not to mention hurt others. its a good thing he didnt get a rifle.

i also know a kid who got shot in the eye, they were playin renegade and the game was over and my friend was putting his stuff away and some kid pointed his walmart spyder at him and shot him in the eye, i would hope on accident, but he didnt lose his eye, but he probibly will be blind in it by 40... it happend on a sat and he was in school on that next thurs and his eye was leaking fluid fom the surgery... its a shame when it happens to some one who wasnt holding the gun and it isnt thier falt...but to shoot yourself with or w/o a e trigger is pure stupidity... and well he got what he deserved, and as i said the only down side in this case is it puts pball in a negitive light... i hope you stand up for pball and show it was his fault, not paintball.

[FreshmanBob]

thats some mighty wicked karma, and yes he deserved it. Looking down the barrel of a loaded paintgun?

"Hmmmmm is there a ball there?"

yup!

[Trench]

Sorry, but he is a dumb @ss, and I feel no pain for him in the least... fact is, if I catch anyone ruining the name of my sport by shooting cop cars, I will beat their @ss...

[darklord]

Well, that's poetic justice for you. If the kid is stupid enough to look down the barrel of a loaded gun with the safety off, and stupid enough to try to pull some violent stunt like that, then yeah, he deserves it. Well, maybe he doesn't deserve it, but he did need some kind of slap in the face to teach him a lesson.


**explicative deleted**(heh, you jay and silent bob fans will like that) gah.....that movie brings shame to all of Kevin Smith's movies. What was he thinking when he churned out that waste of space?

[Kevmaster]

eh, it wasnt as good as the rest, but i hear hes got another in the works(and i stil lthink Dogma wa the best yet)

[Trigger_Happy]

And you had better belive that his mommy is on the phone all day telling all her friends, relatives, telemarketers, and poor souls who called the wrong number that paintball is of the devil and should be banned.

This make that quote "Stupid should hurt" apply so well its uncanny.

[joeyjoe367]

Geez, I feel sorry for this guy, as screwing up your vision could be a horrible thing, but then again, His previous actions don't make me feel any sorrier for him.

Freak accident? No. It was his own damn fault. Whenever I work on a gun, I detatch hoppers, barrels, air supplies.

It REALLY pisses me off that this is giving paintball a bad reputation at your school. What these people don't realize is that he was being a moron.

This sucks for ALL of us.

[FreshmanBob]

yeah you need to stand up for paintball a bit here bud, explain to everyone how stupid he was and that statistically paintball is safer than golf.

[Jonno06]

stupid should hurt..and it obviously did..

he didnt "deserve" it..but he did it to himself..

[digitard]

I am of the same opinion .....

I dont believe he deserved to lose an eye .... but from what his intentions were with the gun (shooting people, cars, officers, etc) then I think that maybe it will take an injury like this to teach him a life lesson .... and karma.

If he had been wearing goggles on the field and some freak accident cracked his lens .. then I'd have all the sympathy in the world ........ but when you have wrong intentions and you just looked down the gun after a jam then something like that can and in this case did happen and I cannot feel bad ... but I still say that I feel sorry that it will take an injury of this severity to make a change.

Best of luck on his recovery ... Hope he learns

Sincerely,
Dave

[Webmaster]

No one "deserves" to loose an eye...

But this brings up the fact that kids today know NOTHING about gun safety. This would be even more tragic if it was a fire arm.

You would think it would be commone sence - but we need to teach kids gun safety at a young age - which is basically this:

Never point a gun at someone - and ALWAYS assume the gun is loaded. Never look down the barrel. Keep your finger off the trigger till youre ready to shoot. Obviously you have to violate the first rule to play the gun - but other wise these basics should keep everyone safe.

Sorry for your friends loss. Did you ever ask what he was thinking when helooked down the barrel?

[straightshot]

Originally posted by Webmaster
No one "deserves" to loose an eye...
But this brings up the fact that kids today know NOTHING about gun safety. This would be even more tragic if it was a fire arm.
You would think it would be commone sence - but we need to teach kids gun safety at a young age - which is basically this:
Never point a gun at someone - and ALWAYS assume the gun is loaded. Never look down the barrel. Keep your finger off the trigger till youre ready to shoot. Obviously you have to violate the first rule to play the gun - but other wise these basics should keep everyone safe.


This is something that I don't understand these days. As a child and I'm only 24, I was always taught those above rules. I think all the gun control in this country is almost causing more problems. I mean come on it should be a given that you put the safety on any type of gun when its not in use.

[FutureMagOwner]

i think you should tell the kid that it was his own dumb fault the only time i look down the end of my gun is when its completley disassebled and should anyone and if your going to clean it or whatever he was doing he shouldnt have the thing loading for crying out loud. you should tell him and his parents the truth may hurt but when you shoot your own eye out by looking down the barrel of your own paintball gun someone needs to tell him. imo thats the problem today is everyone is afraid to tell the truth because it may hurt their feelings or some crap like that

[paint magnet]

He tells everyone that it got shot out with a paintball gun. Rarely mentioning that he was looking down the barrel:mad: Yeah, stupid should hurt, and the thing that really makes me mad was that in his words he was only buying it to "shoot kids and houses and maybe play once or twice" And I even told him "you're going to shoot someone's eye out" and he did. Fortunately it wasn't some innocent person's eye or window but his own.

[EnderWigginPballin]

Originally posted by HoppysMag
not to be mean but some parts of the gene pool need chlorine.
LMAO..... :D

I agree with Straightshot and Webmaster. There's a little bit of common sense involved with handling anything that launches a projectile, and most of my peers (I'm 16) have no idea how to safely handle a firearm/paintball gun/marker.... We don't have any firearms in my house, but I have been taught how to handle firearms, and there's no excuse for someone to not know how to safely handle one. think how many accidents could be prevented if everyone knew a little about firearms safety!

as for the kid, irony is so funny..... Sucks to be him, tough luck, good thing he didn't shoot out a 5 year old trick-or-treater's eye...

[Warped Designs]

I am just glad that didnt happen with a real gun

Why in the hell would someone look into a tube that things fly out of at high velocity?

and stuff

[InfinatyBPS]

http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25023&highlight=shot+eye

I guess that the ball was already half chopped...

[RAM3139]

After hearing stories like this, it's kinda hard not to believe Darwin. But i have to agree, gun saftey is not common knowledge in the paintball community. I was taught it by my Dad when i got a BB gun, and it's stuck with me to the point where it's common sense ( although looking down the barrel of a loaded gun should be coomon sense anyway). It sucks that paintball has a bad name now in your area. I'm sure if that happened at my college, the already anal campus saftey would turn into the paintball Gestapo. I'd try to explain paintball is actually safe but i highly doubt it will do much good; the ignorant will choose to remain so.

[EnderWigginPballin]

Originally posted by RAM3139
the ignorant will choose to remain so.

yeah, I have that problem about a lot of the thinbgs I do...

My friend's mom thinks I'm in a cult because i play Dungeons & Dragons... lol She also thinks that the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 tabletop battle games are "Satanistic"

That's what will always slow down paintball until someone decides it might make a good TV show, people have to make an effort to learn about the game, and they're lazy, so they'll just remain ignorant, with stories of idiots shooting their own eyes out reflecting so nicely on the paintball community, we'll be more popular than soccer in no time... :rolleyes:

[daveymag]

Sucks to be him.

[AssassN]

I looked down my talon barrel and hit trigger with no mask on. I got VERY lucky and had no ball in there but the air hurts VERY BAD. I cna't even imagine a ball in there.

That is one of those things taht u do it once and nver again.

[puckmaster]

He didn't deserve to loose his eye. he deserved to have been hit in the top of the head and having to walk around with a big welt on his forhead.

The stupidity of some people is sick. At our field, My friend(gemplard here on AO) and I tell kids that don't use there barrel plugs and/or take off there masks a story about the time that a guy took of his mask just as he was bunkered and got shot in the eye and we were reffing. We then say that his eye was hanging out of the socket. Then the rest of the day, the kids NEVER take off the masks, not even when they are in the staging area of bathroom.