Paintball article in the Chicago Tribune

[Garrum]

We aren't trying to convince them that you use guns. They already know that you use guns. We are trying to convince you that you use guns. Calling your paintball gun a marker does not keep it from being a gun. It has a lock (trigger, sear), stock (the grip), and a barrel. The three base components of a gun. It fires projectiles at high speed, and is capable of causing severe injury and death. A paintball gun may not be a firearm, but it is still a gun.

But go ahead, and keep singing your song, "La la la it's not a gun". But you are on their hit list. Hopefully, we can beat them, and you won't have to lift a finger to save yourself. That is what I hope happens.

[raehl]

I also realize that people who don't like guns are not the same as people who don't like paintball guns. Yes, there are people out there who hate pretty much everything, including guns and paintball markers, but there are also lots of people out there who hate guns but have nothing against paintball guns.

I know it's convenient for you to say that it's all the same people, but it's not true.


- Chris

[tony3]

:o That article wasn't bad, they finally got the difference between stupid people shooting cars and people playing on real fields, not bad.

[ratmasta]

k

well that solves some problems

[Garrum]

They have nothing against paintball guns because they haven't gotten to them yet. Just like they have nothing against hunting rifles right now. But after they get rid of of those scary looking 'assault rifles' and handguns, guess what becomes the next big threat to the fabric of society? Sniper rifles. Also known as hunting rifles. I can hear the ads now. "They have the ability to kill from 1 mile away!" The public panics and hunting rifles are legislated out of existance.

Then they move on to shotguns. This is an easy one. Wheel out a side of freshly cut beef and proceed to shoot it with 12 ga. 000 buckshot, the same stuff that SWAT teams use in their entry shotguns. It does incredible damage to whatever it hits. Looks terrible. the public takes one look at the bloody mess it leaves on that side of beef, and that is all she wrote.

Then they move on to all of the lesser evils: BB guns, pellet guns, and paintball guns. A few videos showing a mock up of a human head getting shot in the eye by these monstrosities, with the eyes being completely demolished and driven back into the skull, and the public will demand that these 'Devil's playthings' be banned and crucifed. The horror! They were being marketed to children! We must save them!

It is never enough for those who hate freedom. They took our fully automatic guns years ago. They were never used in very many crimes. Didn't matter. But then they had to take our semi automatic rifles because they looked scary, looked like full auto weapons. Again, never used very much in crime. At the same time they took our full capacity magazines, because apparently Cops need more ammunition than us because they operate in groups, and we operate alone. They have been trying, and have been successful in many areas, to take our pistols from us, because only government employees should be able to defend themselves.

Logic does not deter those who hate guns. They hate ALL guns, regardless of flavor or shape. With the exception of the guns used to protect them from the victims of their social reengineering.

Look Raehl, I'm not arguing with you to simply win an argument. I'm trying to get you to see that our paintball guns are not safe unless we paintballers stand with those 'gun-nuts', as you called me. If paintballers just stand by and let bad people take away our tools of self defense, our toys as some might call them, then us 'gun nuts' won't have any incentive to help you save your toys.

I'm not going to argue with you anymore, because you have made your public stance. People rarely change their stance once they are challenged on it, especially in public. But I do ask you to re-read what I have said, this time without the defensive tone. Don't post any responses, just read it again to yourself. Think about it from the point of view of someone who hates anything that involves conflict or strife, someone who has no compunction about twisting reality to outlaw something because they don't like it. And remember that they wield power far beyond their numbers, because they can scare the general population into submission. Scared people tend to do what they are told.

[DWill]

I live right next to North Aurora so I hope that the law isn't picked up by Batavia, but then again I don't play anywhere but at a field.

[raehl]

Alright then.

You're right - they probably won't stop until all guns are gone. That's exactly why I want gun nuts to stop telling people that paintball guns are guns!

It's like your threatening us - if you don't protect guns, we're taking you with us!

*NOT* helping us after (or before) "they" ban guns is exactly what we want!

So, I promise not to get in the way of "them" taking away guns as long as you promise not to try to "help" us, deal?


Antigun nut: "We must ban guns!"
Gun Nut: "If you paintball people don't stop them from banning guns, they'll go after paintball guns too!"
Antigun Nut: "Hey, why are these gun nuts so friendly with these paintball people? We better ban those too!"

The LAST thing we want to do is VALIDATE such ridiculousness by allying ourselves with the gun lobby. We've spent 20 years trying to shake the image that paintball is played by a bunch of gun nuts in the woods. Why would we want to run back to that? Sorry, you're on your own.

- Chris

[Brophog]

Face it, its still a gun.

The only difference between a real firearm, a BB pellet, and a paintball gun is velocity. If I shot a paintball at 3000 fps, it'd be lethal too. If I stuck a lead ball in my paintball marker, and cranked up the velocity, its a gun. It wouldn't be hard to modify a paintball marker to accept a high enough pressure to shoot a solid object at lethal velocities.

This whole idea of getting out of the woods and calling guns 'markers' is ridiculous. Its the same game, with the same equipment. You've just changed woods to brightly colored bunkers, markers from black to pink, and camo to brightly colored jerseys.

Do you really think people are so dumb as to not recognize a sheep when they see one. Don't paint a sheep green and call it a squirrel.

This was not meant to insult you directly, but to drive home the point that its not the equipment you ban, its the people. However, its often easier to ban the equipment. That doesnt end the hate, the crime, or the want to kill by the individuals killing. If they don't have guns, they'll use knives, or swords, or slingshots. People were killing people long before guns came around. People will kill long after guns are banned.

On a side note, I have an uncle in the military over in Germany. As many of you know, they are very much anti-gun over there, to the point that many policemen in Europe don't carry firearms. Guess who does though....yep, the bad guys. Guns are rampant on the black market over there, and more and more criminals are getting a hold of illegal firearms.

[raehl]

Oh please.

Cops in Germany carry guns. Some cops in Germany carry VERY BIG guns. And Germany isn't "anti-gun" - it's *VERY* difficult to own a handgun, that's for sure, but it's not like people run around saying guns are evil. It's just a society where most people don't even want a gun.

And I don't have an uncle who lives in Germany - I lived there myself, for a year.

And I'm not saying paintball shouldn't be played in the woods, or with camou, or any other PC rubbish. I'm saying that it's taken us 20 years to get people who don't play paintball to understand that paintball is not primarily played by MILLITIA GUN NUTS in the woods.

A paintball marker isn't any more of a gun than a nail gun or slingshot. Or BB gun for that matter - which, btw, any adult is allowed to have anywhere in this country.

In fact, despite there being MANY MANY countries with very strict anti-gun laws, there are only two that are similarly harsh on paintball guns: Australia and Germany. Austrialia is LOOSENING its enforcement and laws regarding paintball guns, and Germany it's mainly a big import-stamp hassle and a ban against paintball markers that look too much like real guns.

Fact of the matter is, guns have been "banned" in plenty of places, and paintball guns were *NOT* banned shortly thereafter.


Any gun-lobby propoganda that we need to fight for guns or they'll take away paintball guns is just that - propoganda. Guns in the US are not going away, short of a constitutional amendment. What we don't want to do is make ourselves a target and possible casualty in the anti-gun-nut and gun-nut fight, because while real guns have nice constitutional protections, paintball guns do not. We should NOT be out there LOOKING for a fight just because gun nuts want to co-opt the sport for their gun-nut purposes.


So, might some paintball players REALLY CARE about their ability to own firearms? Sure. Does that mean paintball should fight for firearms? Absolutely not. Fighting for firearms is *NOT* in paintball's best interest. It may be in FIREARM OWNER's best interest, but not ours.


- Chris

[Brophog]

I didn't say cops in Germany, I said there are some in Europe. There is a difference.

I would have said the specific country, but as it is second hand knowledge, I wasn't going to pass it on for any more of a factual basis than what I knew.

[Brophog]

Your getting hostile for no reason here.

There are lots of people who still think we are militia nuts. We need to educate them, not hide things behind PC garbage.

I don't see your connections here. I'm certainly not fighting one way or another for firearms here. I'm not saying we back any kind of firearm policies or lobby for their use.

I'm saying you have to get real here and realize that paintball is only safe and legal because we have enforced rules to keep it that way. Paintball can be very dangerous otherwise.

I'm sorry, I think you were agitated by earlier posts. I do not see how my post caused you to run to such conclusions.

[raehl]

Supplemental paragraphs were not necessarily directed at your post in particular.

Agree that paintball only remains legal through proper rules and diligence.

- Chris

[Brophog]

And to prove my post of second hand knowledge of police and firearms was not totally off base:

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/12/30/uk.police/

I agree that we should be diligent in our use of paint markers. But they do have some validity in the correlation between guns/paintball. Afterall, was it not NYC that banned all guns, replica or not, to include water guns and paintball markers.

Whether we like it or not, the stereotype still remains that if you teach people to shoot other people with fake guns, you teach people to shoot people with real ones.

[raehl]

Maybe not off base, but also not representative: As the article says at the end, officers France, Italy and Germany all carry guns.

And NYC only thinks they banned paintball guns.

- Chris

[Brophog]

Brittain is still in Europe though, right. I'd take that as atleast being factual of policemen in Europe not carrying guns.

We're arguing semantics at this point though.