10yo boy possibly blinded in one eye by pball

[twinkle toes]

Famine...

a quick point. I dont think we should be jumping on the back of air gun law. You never know what else they will bring over from it. I dont know what there mussle velocity is , but I think it is less than 300fps. ( I dont know so dont jump on me. I just remember someone way back mentioning this , and paint guns exceeding the airgun limit. BUT I and they could be wrong ).

Also the thing about 17 years old to buy a marker. O.K. if that sounds good , then fine. But make it so you can join on your own at this age , but you can be 'sponsored' by an existing over age member , from 12? As long as a parent is present too.

Otherwise , we are going to lose a lot of existing ballers because they would not be allowed to buy , and therefor own , a marker. Dont forget , ALL existing markers would need to be registered to existing owners. It would be down to the tourny organisers and site operators to enforce a rule of only registered kit and players allowed.

The picture ID card for members is a very good idea.
As he said , No card - No Marker!! I know this slows thing up at first , while everything gets processed , but think how much easier it would be to control the use and sale of new and used markers in the future.
But you would have to get the backing of the entire UK paintballing community , or you end up with a 'black market' scenerio.

 

[Hotpoint]

Paintball Markers are Airguns and are already bound by all the relevant legislation

Muzzle-Velocity is not actually legislated but rather Energy. The legal limit is 12 ft/lbs of pressure this being equivalent to about 340 fps for a medium weight paintball

The Sports Council take us very seriously at the moment, they're just trying (and failing) in their efforts to exclude us without breaking their own regulations

Still waiting for a comment from people who sell markers for a living....

 

[Rich S]

tt

the wait 5 days for regristration to be implememted answered all my questions .

lets get a registration system going, it will help the sport england application - i would think.
every registers their marker and other equipment(depending upon how much we want to expand) and they get a unique reg number, this can be written onto markers, a small sticker or uv pen or something. if the marker is sold the database is updated. then if a marker is stolen the police have something specific on the marker to look for and people buying secondhand markers have a refrence to check the validity of ownership. a DVLA for paintball.
picture id cards with correlating number to the marker number. it is easily done at paintball shops or over the internet as most people with computers now have access to scanners. scan in photo and proof of age, address, whetever and email it across with online application. it is checked and an id made a few days later.

 

[FAMINE]

Markers are already goverened by the air gun laws, Hence the 300fps, which is something to do with ball weight etc.

Manike is the man for this info.

As for under 17s?

Let em use site guns or join a club. I was reading about the club in the new pgi and that would really help our sport grow.

To say they can own them and have parents present is naive,
How often will these little buggers be sneaking them out to show mates etc.

Parents cant control kids, simple as that. So just ban them from owning them. 17 to drive, 18 to drink. Hell they get sex at 16, gonna take at least a year to get all that out of their systems

Harsh yes, but also safe. Thats what we need.

 

[twinkle toes]

As for under 17s?

Let em use site guns or join a club. I was reading about the club in the new pgi and that would really help our sport grow.

To say they can own them and have parents present is naive,
How often will these little buggers be sneaking them out to show mates etc.

The thing is , as I've said , you wont get the support of the existing paintball community like this. There are lots of tournament players under this age now. You cant bring in a new rule that will exclude them to site rental days only. Besides anythign else , THAT would be damaging to the future of UK tournament paintball. You need the young players.

As for sneaking the markers out to show their friends. The whole point of a parent being guarantor ( and by this I mean register thier details too ) , is that THEY are directly responsible for the marker and its use by thier child. This should be strongly pointed out at point of sale. ensuring the parent thinks about what is happening with the marker , and ensuring it is kept safe and out of harms way , even if it means emptying the air/Co2 supply after every event. ( now thats not a bad idea for underage kids anyway , hard to enforce though ).
Further control than this is pointless anyway. If the parent really does not care about being held responsible , and does not care about his/her childs safety , and that of their friends. What will stop said parent registering him/herself , buying the kit , and then giving it to little 'jonny' to go and play with outside?

You cant stop every idiot from getting their hands on dangerous stuff. No matter how hard you try. But you can implement rules that make it difficult , and therefor less likely. You just have to be careful not to make it so hard , that sensible and respectful people cant get hold of kit. .

Just my opinions.

 

[FAMINE]

Way i see it is this,

As already stated we are covered by air gun laws, so the 17 years of age thing is already in place. Just needs enforcing.

As for the parents thing, re read the thread, its about a parent buying a kid this "toy" and then blinding another kid. You cant judge anything on whats righht or wrong, all u can go by is what the public sees, they wont care if the parent was in the wrong, they will just see a blind kid caused by nasty paintballs!

It needs control, however harsh.

Below 17? join a club and use a club marker controilled by people in the know, not dumb arsed parents. Kinda like the article in faceful regarding some countries gun laws. ALL markers are held at a club.

 

[go-one]

I remember about 5-7 years back registering my markers (then an automag & sterling) with the UKPSF. It was more of a if its stolen type database and you got a little paper ID for you markers to show to police / customs etc to show it was 'legit'. I wounder what ever happened to that database.

On the doing it again now, personaly I think it will be unenforceable. The differenc with cars (which has been used as an example) is the regestration etc is ran by the Goverment and enforced by the police ! but even that is not 100%, how many stories do we see of un licensed / taxed / insured drivers. Nuff said !

I dont belive the UKPSF, even with industry backing has the resorces to run this even if it gets off the ground. And if anyone thinks it will stop kids getting hold of markers they are seriously over optamistic. Just as a ban on guns has INCREASED the no of illigaly held weapons, and has in no way improved misuse.

So whats my answer ? I must admit I dont have one. We have to contnue doing what we're doing, promoting safe use of markers etc. The industry has to say NO to selling to kids without parents. (not that that will stop it all together anyway). We must isue statments after each 'incident' distancing ourselves from this type of act and promoting safe use on proper sites. If the goverment force our hand and laws are introduced then at least it will be the goverment, who have the resources to do so running registration and enforcement.

 

[Scotty D]

I think that some sort of control should be brought in. Somebody said that having to become a member of some sort of body may put people off starting paintball, hopefully it wont but it may be the only way to go.
I don't have the answers to this problem but I will support some sort of SELF governed registration.

 

[Henry.B]

damn silly kids

this is bad. did u seee the government try to bann air rifles well we all know what the collective arsehole is like (i mean government) lets just hope ppl stop over reacting. anyways, is it our fault that she didn't make them wear goggles?

 

[ices]

Before the newspapers begin to rip us apart why doesnt some leading paintball represencatives of PGI, paintball companies etc..,
get together to do an article on the issues of paintball, how they strive to make sure markers are not used as 'petty war play' by kids who then injure people and why selling these kind of
'Toy Markers' is quite irresponsible.

Getting the important facts to the public at large has got to be our responsibility, ecspecially the manufacturers.

Im sure the manufacturers will do something about this due to the fact that these kind of incidents will give them a bad image and today, companies strive for good image

All is well with the manufacturers stating their safety issues on markers but does a little kid pay attention to this?

Next we will have the parents barking down the line to the papers saying how these so called toys of war should be banned pronto.
The media loves a story where a company has marketed a product which is a threat to Health & Safety.

Papers like the Mail are very biased and extreme in the trash they write so shouldnt we approach papers like
The Express , Sun etc? (good papers only)