AGD Shot Turd!!!!!

[Gunga]

Uh...thanks for the good time?

[AGD]

He got about 100 rounds in 5 seconds. If you notice there are no welts at all.

AGD

[raehl]

Please, Tom, seriously, get the video off the net. That needs to be put where the sun don't shine, along with all the pictures of the shirt with holes in it. you guys are giving people a chance to represent paintball under extraordinary circumstances as normal circumstances.

- Chris

[Load SM5]

So what's involved in temporarily flashing e-mag boards for full auto?

[Potatoboy]

Did he not have any welts because of the mat?

Or because of weltless perfect circle rounds?

[Jack_Dubious]

Raehl,
I dont see how a radio publicity stunt, in a controlled enviroment with safety equipment and adults could be used as ammunition to ban all paintball.

Now a video of teenagers driving around and shooting unsuspecting people, and then laughing about it....thats a different story...


JDub

[SHAZAM]

alert !!!!!!

Tom,

for the love of paintball...you really should take out the audio of this clip. it is still cool with out it

[raehl]

You don't see how a video of a marker firing 100 rounds in 5 seconds while the "victim" begs for it to stop can be used as ammunition to get paintball banned? Especially when the victim had the benefit of what amounted to body armor and apparently volunteered to participate?

Just picture 5-20 middle aged people on a committee or city council somewhere with no experience with paintball imagining a group of teenagers running around with that equipment, and then try and tell me how that video isn't destructive. You have to understand that the people who may end up viewing that viedo will *NOT* have the benefit of the context you have through your paintball experience.

Sometimes I am quite surprised by the inability of some people in the paintball community to comprehend the potential consequences of their actions.

- Chris

[Timmee]

a possible argument.

A possible argument could be made by field owners, operators, league operators, etc, stating that under most circumstances, full auto is not allowed. However, I do see your point in this matter. Doesn't mean I didn't enjoy watching it, but I do recognize that your points are valid.

[AGD]

Chris,

I am not going to take it off because all the members of the paintball industry have never even seen a marker shoot this fast full auto. They have absoulutely no idea what it can do or the consequences.

Four years ago I warned the industry that the limit of gravity feed was going away and they needed to do something about it.

Three years ago all the major gun manufacturers agreed not to sell full auto guns by the end of that year. Guess what, they didn't EVER stop making them.

End of last year the biggest name in tourney guns stated that they would not remove full auto because it would be limiting in a time of recession. The fact that they had agreed to earlier did not make any difference.

This year the two highest volume manufacturers made their statements. One made an MP5 look alike that will go full auto with a kit. The other wrote a letter to what ended up being the National Assoc. of Opthamologists stating that there was no reason to ban full auto.

AGD has never marketed a full auto gun. We loose money and market share every day to our competitors because we remain true to our morals. Am I going to stick it in their face? You bet I am! Full auto has been here for a long time and if it takes a video like this for a wake up call, then so be it.

Tom Kaye

[SHAZAM]

our leader has spoken . . .

I will fight with you to death do us part, Fearless Lord.

[SHAZAM]

here yee here yee

let all be warned . . .The borg comand just release a press statement


IT IS FUTILE TO RESIST. . .ASSIMILATION IS INEVITABLE ! ! !

[AGD]

I just uploaded higher quality vids to replace the originals.

AGD

[raehl]

Tom, there's a bigger picture, and it's this:

Those videos make it that much easier for no one to be able to sell any paintball markers at all. That goes way beyond having full auto markers or having markers that closely resemble real firearms. That is the President of a paintball equipment manufacturing company getting a kick out of using his product to light up some guy while he begs for mercy. Is that ACTUALLY what's going on? No, but no one about to vote on whether to allow the sale of paintball markers in their city or state is going to know that. I'm going to be sitting behind a table somewhere trying to explain that no one in the public has access to a marker like that and whichever government body it is is going to say - as you've just pointed out - "What keeps another company from selling a gun with those capabilities in the future?"

I appreciate taking the high ground and not selling full auto markers to the public. I don't see how that justifies participating in a setback elsewhere, especially just to spite other companies. Regardless, there is nothing about what you are trying to demonstrate that requires an actual person to be cussing up a storm on the receiving end.


- Chris

[billmi]

I'd like to start out by mentioning that Tom Kaye is someone I know, like, and respect on both a personal and professional level. My statements about this demo for the Mancow radio show don't mean I hate Tom, AGD, etc. That being said...

Originally posted by Jack_Dubious
Raehl,
I dont see how a radio publicity stunt, in a controlled enviroment with safety equipment and adults could be used as ammunition to ban all paintball.

Now a video of teenagers driving around and shooting unsuspecting people, and then laughing about it....thats a different story...
JDub

Let's see... Teenagers doing a drive by shown on the news with reporters saying they were committing a crime, and more often than not the perpetrators serving jail time makes it clear that what they are doing is not the sport of paintball.

Seems to me that's pretty easy to dismiss when brought up as a negative example of paintball. "Those people weren't playing paintball, they were committing assault, which is already illegal. It's really not different than attacking someone with a baseball bat, and infact one of the first cases of assault like that involved a baseball bat in addition to a paintgun. Fortunately they were caught and received jail time - we need more 'tough on crime' laws to protect those of us who use paintguns and baseball bats in the safe and proper way they were intended."

On the other side of the coin, when a respected paintball industry leader and product manufacturer is shown pelting someone and making them scream in paint and shredding their clothing, how do you answer to that?

"Well, he wasn't really hurt, I mean his clothing was shredded and he was screaming in pain while everyone laughed at him, but he had rubber under his shirt, and see look at this photo through the ripped up shirt, you can't see any welts, the skin is all yellow and red, so he's OK."

"What's that? No, we don't wear protective rubber when we play, but really, this isn't what paintball is like, it was just a demo."

"What? Well yes, he is a leader of the paintball industry, and that is the paintgun he makes and sells, but the ones he sells don't shoot as many balls per second, well at least not in full auto like that. You're not listening to me though, this isn't what paintball is like."

"But he wasn't really hurt, this was just a demo to get people excited about the game, even though this isn't what the game is like, this will make people want to come play, that's what this is about."


Chris is absolutely right, video like this could easily be used against paintball - because people who want to sway votes in a public forum don't care about being accurate or giving details - they care about getting people to vote their way, and if you can scare people, it's much easier to lead them to vote your way. Moreover many public officials don't care about laws they pass being right, wrong, or usefull, they are more interested in making their constuents think they have done things to protect them and make their lives better. If they can scare their voters into thinking something is dangerous and then ban it, that give them the opportunity to look like a hero and get reelected.

To tens of thousands of people, (whatever Mancow's audience is) who aren't familiar with paintball their introduction to the "sport" is new someone being pelted with paint at 20 bps and screaming in pain. WE know this demo isn't what the sport of paintball is, but they don't - this is how they were introduced.

Imagine, you're sitting on a city council seat somewhere, and you don't know jack about what paintball is. Some field is trying to get a zoning permit, or there is a law banning paintball on the table. The paintballers show you a nice carboard display like a 12th grade science project with samples of paintballs and pictures of players in bright colored jerseys, and bar graphs showing how safe it is. They say "well it does hurt a little to get hit, but it's not bad - this is a safe and fun family sport."

Then the opposition presents, and they show you a video clip of this guy screaming and curssing while his clothing gets shreded by a paintball gun. If you didn't know the truth about paintball, how would you feel after that demo.

Don't think it can happen? My local field is Spacecoast paintball in Titusville, FL. They ran into last minute zoning problems when some neighbors protested, and I was asked by the owners to come to their open house day when the neighbors and zoning committee members would come and look at the field and learn about paintball. The field has a buffer of over 250 feet of thick woods between any tapelines or staging areas and the nearest neighboring homes.

When that buffer distance was explained, and the range of paintguns explained, one irate woman whipped out a print-out of a Tippmann Flatline description from Paintballnation.com that said the Flatline could shoot over 100 yards with accuracy, and proceeded to rant about how her house was going to get covered in paint because the field owners were lying about paintgun range, etc. Even after shooting demos with the range marked off in feet, and people struggling to get the ball to go 100 feet, this woman was still dubious - because she had her info from the net showing that 300+ foot shots were possible.

Another resident was concerned that children attending the school across the street, or her children peeking over the fence of her backyard might see players dressed in camo walking through the woods and "need to go to therapy to cope with that trauma."

Footage like this is EXACTLY the kind of thing that will appear in public hearings about the sport.

Further I'm disturbed that in the photos Tom is wearing disassembled goggles. There are no goggles on the market today designed to protect the eye against paintball impact with their mask and ear protection removed. JJ Brookshire, a former AGD employee has expounded on this issue at great length, citing studies using human head forms with flexible skin and a hard synthetic skull underneath which show quite graphically that a paintball hitting the unprotected cheek will bounce off the cheekbone and go under the goggle frame with enough force to rupture a pig's eye (which has a nearly identical structure, size and internal pressure to a human's eye).

Sure, the manufacturers make the goggles with the mask and ear protection. Sure, the testing shows it's a necessary part of the goggle. Sure, the field operators and insurance companies require that it be there, but if a leader in the paintball industry that has put more time and effort into R&D than any other company in the sport says it's OK to take the goggles apart and make them less protective, then that must be safe, right?

I'm further amazed, that online so many players, scream and rant at similar stunts on the MTV show Jack#$@ yet, so many are cheering this stunt. Why the double standard?The SPPLAT Shatner big game will be awash with mainstream media. According to JJ Brookshire, they've had to reduce the maximum number of players to make room for the live remote trucks that CNN and other networks want to have on site. That means there will be a lot of interviews and demonstrations for the mainstream media.

Additionally, a lot of the people attending the event will be first time paintballers. Brookshire says many of the preregistered players are Star Trek fans who haven't played before. For hundreds there, this will be their first look at paintball.

I've been holding that weekend in my calendar open with hopes to attend. I'll talk more to JJ and Tom about how things will be run there, but honestly if this is how paintball will be shown to the public I think it will be a black eye for the sport, and something I don't want to be involved with.

See you on the field,
-Bill Mills