Paintball - 1, angry parents - 0

[rap4paintball]

I can across a link about a week ago to a newspaper that would put their storys on the internet. The link I got took me to a page with a woman bashing paintball and saying it should be illegal. I will not post the link to the site because I do not want the website to be flooded with emails about paintball. But here is what this woman said:

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Paint ball guns

There ought to be a law ... Against paint ball guns. These little weapons are considered "toys" and can be legally handled and mishandled by children. They are guns ... weapons!

We do not give our children rifles and shotguns to play with, so why paint ball guns?

I know of two boys who recently were shot in the eye. In both cases the eyeball was blown in half. They will each be blind in one eye now. And these things are toys?

Instead of our legislators busying themselves with frivolous and sometimes redundant laws, maybe they should look at this situation. A politician could probably win office by using this in his platform.

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I read that and I thought "wow this Woman didnt really know anything about paintball does she?"
so I wrote a letter to the newpaper and so did another reader and here are our responces. Here is the first letter:

Paint ball guns

Ms. Wakley,

You have brought up a valid point about the dangers of paint ball guns. They can be used incorrectly, and dangerously.

But let us not stop with laws banning paint ball guns, let us ban or make laws covering everything that can cause children to blind themselves or another.

Let's ban bows and arrows, BB guns, pellet guns, sticks, fireworks, scissors, pencils, fingers. Why, the list is astounding in its length of all the things that children have used to poke out either their eye or the eye of
another.

Or perhaps we could resort to having parents supervise their children?

Maybe they could even use good judgment about when a child is responsible enough to handle the item.

I am sorry the two youngsters you mention suffered injury. I feel badly when any child suffers an injury.

The positive side is that they frequently learn from them, and sometimes others learn the lesson from learning about the incident. Protecting our children from everything in life that could possibly harm them does not prepare them for life.

Lonalee A. Hamlin Jr. ,

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And here is my letter:


Paintball guns

I am writing this letter in conclusion to the letter on paint ball guns written by Lila ######. I was sad to hear what was being said about the sport of paintball.

"These little weapons are considered 'toys' and can be legally handled and mishandled by children," as quoted by Lila is a uneducated and ignorant statement.

I am a owner of a paintball business and I am not allowed to sell paintball markers to anyone under the age of 18, and every paintball marker since 1990 has this statement printed on the gun itself, "Warning, This is not a toy. Misuse may cause serious injury or death. Eye protection designed for paintball use must be worn by the user and any person within range. Read operation manual before using."

I just wanted to bring this issue to light as uneducated parents and citizens talk bad about the sport without even knowing the facts. Statistically, paintball is a safer sport than the sport of bowling. In most states paintball markers, paintballs, and the propellant cannot be purchased by anyone under the age of 18, in some states 21.

Since a parent is the one who has to buy the paintball marker for their kids, shouldn't they know if their own kid is responsible enough to use it?

Devin Wolfe,

Canton, Ohio






If you do know what website this came from please keep it to yourself to prevent the flooding of emails and letters to this newpaper. Thanks

[robotmaniafu]

you are exactly correct in your letters, it wasnt the guns fault, it was the kids who were acting irresponsibley, it clearly states "This is not a toy" and that it could be harmful and or fatal, yes they shouldnt have been playing with paintball guns without a mask or eye protection, you should always keep a barrel condom and or barrel plug in at all times and just like a real gun treat it like its loaded

[angel]

I read about one incident where some stupid kid left his gun on, aired up, and loaded on his table without a condom or plug and one kid got pushed or something into the table and the gun went off and hit a kid in the eye. First off, you shouldn't have you trigger that sensitive and you have to be a complete idiot to leave your gun on and loaded on a table near kids fooling around.

[bmxrcer190]

angel said:

I read about one incident where some stupid kid left his gun on, aired up, and loaded on his table without a condom or plug and one kid got pushed or something into the table and the gun went off and hit a kid in the eye. First off, you shouldn't have you trigger that sensitive and you have to be a complete idiot to leave your gun on and loaded on a table near kids fooling around.

Its not a matter of being stupid, its a matter of just forgetting, people just forget to turn the gun off. I remember this one time I thought the gun was empty so I stuck my hand in front of the barrel and shot it and there was still one paintball in the gun. Was it my fault? Yes. Could it have been prevented? Yes. Was it an accident? Of course it was but am I going to blame the paintball gun or the manufactors? Of course not because it could have been prevented. I do believe that if you are going to own something that can cause serious damage to someone, then you have to be responsible to handle it. I wouldn't say its the kids fault for their injury's but the parents fault. If the parents would have watched the kids a little better and taught them how to use it SAFELY and had them wear the protected goggles, then they might not be in this situation. Accidents do happen no matter what your doing. You can break your leg getting out of bed. I don't think it is fair for someone to say to ban paintball guns when they are mis-informed about the subject they are talking about. To say that a paintball gun is a toy, that is complete ignorants. While a paintball gun intended for a "fun" sport, I would not consider a paintball gun a toy nor a weapon. The fact that kids get injured from paintballs gun, while it still is partially their fault, I would have to say that it is also the parents fault, not the manufacture. Look at boxing, the whole point of the sport is to knock the other guy out, should there be a law against boxing because kids fight in school? No. I just don't like seeing mis-informed people talking about things that they do not understand or do not have the correct information about it.

[silentscream]

Paintball is safe from overprotective-nazi parents for the moment, the GTA incident is getting most of the negative attention.

[jtpaintballerx]

well you cant control everyone about there stupidness i heard that 1 in every [glow=red,2,300]5000[/glow] people that play paintball get injured sorta seriously. ya i agree its all parents fault for whats goin on in this world so(well most parents)..

[k00leo]

tl;dr