Paintball Markers no longer on E-Bay

[manike]

Re: An idea......

I had another long post on this... but I'll leave it. Maybe I should do my law degree and go fight our case in the courts.

Originally posted by Hotpoint
Because a paintball marker is potentially lethal it is a firearm (of a sort) an unfortunate, albeit legally accurate, description

Until this is proven in a court of law in relation to paintball markers I'd rather we and the general public do not refer to paintball markers as fire arms. Airguns yeah but there is too much stigma attached to the term fire arm in this country for people to really understand.

I wonder how a round in the eye could end up being lethal? because once blind you'd walk in front of a bus hehehe

Crom-dubh, there's nothing wrong with having a fair discussion/debate. I'm still not convinced it was for the good of all. Which is exactly why I was argueing I'll take a guiness and we can talk about it in the pub

manike

(or that the discussion is over... I think Hotpoint has more work to do... ).

 

[Hotpoint]

Re: Re: An idea......

Originally posted by manike

I wonder how a round in the eye could end up being lethal? because once blind you'd walk in front of a bus hehehe

Potentially Lethal remember

Actually according to a certain infamous study a point-blank round in the eye (at an easily achievable 400fps) will not only pulp the eye but can also drive itself through the back of the socket into the grey matter (Yuck)

Originally posted by manike

(or that the discussion is over... I think Hotpoint has more work to do... ).

Work? Never

 

[manike]

flip side, I am the devil's advocate...

ok from the other point of view if we look at that under the fire arms act regulations.

A paintball round fired at 400fps would have approx 18.5 ft/lbs of energy and therefore if classed under these regulations it would automatically be a fire arm and not an airgun... So at that point it is already deemed to have lethal energy levels and is a fire arm even if it were to start out as an air weapon. (yes I can play both sides of this debate )

If it's firing at that velocity it is already an illegal piece and should be treated as such.

That's not it's intended use and is not normally how you would expect it to be quantified. It's been modified to achieve this...

If we are looking at the lethality of the marker as an air weapon then surely we must analyse it under criteria that make it an air weapon... i.e. less than 12ft/lbs of energy and a lower muzzle velocity...

If they did that test with the gun at 400fps they were already outside the boundaries of the law and the test they were trying to make...

Were they trying to determine the lethality of a paintball marker as an air weapon or just potential lethality? Two different things...

Now obviously there is a onus on manufacturers to not have their markers do that out of the box... such that the testers have to modify it to get that velocity (winding in a spring counts as a modification...)

I know this is a difficult and grey area

manike

 

[Hotpoint]

flip side, I am the devil's advocate...

Originally posted by manike
ok from the other point of view if we look at that under the fire arms act regulations.

A paintball round fired at 400fps would have approx 18.5 ft/lbs of energy and therefore if classed under these regulations it would automatically be a fire arm and not an airgun... So at that point it is already deemed to have lethal energy levels and is a fire arm even if it were to start out as an air weapon. (yes I can play both sides of this debate )

If it's firing at that velocity it is already an illegal piece and should be treated as such.

If they did that test with the gun at 400fps they were already outside the boundaries of the law and the test they were trying to make...

Were they trying to determine the lethality of a paintball marker as an air weapon or just potential lethality? Two different things...

It was a Home Office test aimed at determining potential lethality I believe. In the same way they test Airguns at above 12 ft/lbs to see what would happen after this simple modification to an otherwise legal device

I just mentioned it to point out how we could fall into the Potentially Lethal" definition if a judge decided to take a slightly lasse-faire attitude to statutary interpretation

 

[crom-dubh]

There has to ba a catagory between "harmless" and "able to seriously wound or kill" That catagory is "air guns"

Whether the law is right or wrong, its still the law. The only way round this is to have paintball markers in their own catagory.
Like it or not we have more protection under law when classifiesd as airguns. Can you imagine the effort involved in trying to ban all airguns?
It was proposed at the house of commons but after lengthy debate, it was deemed very impracticle to do so.
If paintball markers had their own classification, the chances are that there would be little difference to the present airgun laws. But it would be so much easier to ban them.
The UK has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, and for good or bad we have to live with them.

 

[Meyer]

Before I start, recognize I'm an american, so I'm not well versed on your gun laws.

While the muzzle energy and automatic capability of paintball markers may cross the line into firearms (not that I believe they do, just hypothetically) the fact that they fire paintballs must have some bearing on their classification. Due to the fact that a paintball is (hopefully) a uniform sphere, even if it has the same muzzle velocity as an actual bullet, the impact would be completely different. A bullet fired from a real firearm is made of metal, it has a much higher mass than paint filled balls, so even though their muzzle velocity is the same, the force imparted by these differently weighted projectiles is much different

Bullets are designed with optimal penetration in mind, paintballs are designed to break once they hit. Also, aside from some extremely large caliber weapons, paintballs have significantly more surface area than bullets. So, when the pointy tip of a bullet impacts a surface, its going to impart a large amount on force over a small area, hence penetration, the bullet will also retain its size, shape, and weight. When a paintball impacts, the soft flesh it hits will form around the ball, absorbing all of its force over the entire surface area of the balls foreward hemisphere, the paintball will also break on its target, and much of the balls energey will be spent on spewing paint over the impact area. This all hinges on the fact that markers are unable to discharge bullet like projectiles, of course, some people inevitably will modify markers to discharge harmful projectiles, but since markers sold today only accept paintballs, unless someone breaks the law anyway, they are incapable of penetration.

And for the eye shots, any number of things are capable of penetrating the eye, since the eye is such a weak area of the body, one cannot use the eye as a benchmark for penetration.

I'm not arguing this as a matter of law, but shouldn't this affect how people think of markers? Being unable to perform the same function as firearms, shouldn't they naturally be classified differently?

 

[crom-dubh]

It doesnt go on muzzle velocity, it goes on muzzle energy.
Also the law in not specific on the ammunition( politically incorrect I know)
Also "lethal" means an injury more than trivial bruising. It doent matter where the ball strikes, for it to not be classified as lethal it cannot do anything more than slightly bruise. Breaking the skin is more than slight bruising, destroying the eye is more than slight bruising. The law is specific. Anything with a barrel (a paintball marker) which fires over 1ft/lbs (a paintball marker) falls under firearms laws.
Again you are confusing the term "firearm". Firearms are not just things that fire a bullet, which uses explosive force for propulsion, but include shotguns, air rifles and high powered airsoft guns. I think it is confusing classifying all these as firearms but that is the law over here.

 

[Munkeh]

How can you measure the muzzle energy? lbs/ft obviously this is a pressure? im confused

 

[crom-dubh]

Off the top of my head I cannot remember the exact calculations.
Basically a paintball weighs on average 3.25g. At 330fps it would have a muzzle energy of 12/ft/lbs which is the legal maximum.
To comensate for spikes in air pressure or other factors the safe limit has been set to 300 fps which equates to roughly 10 ft/lbs.

So in fact paintball pistols should be limited to 215 fps which gives a muzzle energy of 5.1 ft/lbs ( 6 ft/lbs is the legal limit for air pistols)

 

[manike]

Crom dubh I still don't agree with issues that are your opinion which you are interpreting via the regulations to be fact. You can't do that bud.

It says trivial injury such as bruising. It does not say anything about what is more or less than slight bruising. It does not say that breaking the skin is more, less or equal to trivial injury or bruising so please do not state your opinion on such things as if it were a fact! YOU can not state that a ball breaking the skin would be seen as more than a trivial injury in a court of law. It's just your opinion. My opinion about eye injuries is the same as yours though

In effect bruising is breaking of the cells to allow internal bleeding. Bruising = bleeding, the only difference is if it's the upermost skincells or not. A paintball bruise which leaves blood on the surface is just a surface bruise...

These are things that can not be stated as a 'fact' until the court decides how that fact should be

The law is actually very unspecific and open to interpretation and precedents as hotpoint points out. They do that on purpose so they can screw you or let you go depending on the circumstances

And when it talks about lethal in the case of that legislation it IS talking about skin penetration. Hotpoints precedent is something seperate. And he quite rightly states it as a 'potential' situation and in that case with something which would quite clearly require a fire arms certificate and should NOT be used to play paintball anyway .

The law is specific about anything with a LETHAL barrel shooting over 1ft/lbs being a firearm. Not anything with a barrel as we pointed out earlier. If you are going to use quotes from that legislation use them in full with all defining qualities please. Abbreviating them does no one any good if they just flash read this thread.

I still don't see any evidence in that legislation which shows when a marker has been classified. All of hotpoints points were about potential situations, not classification set in stone. There is a huge difference in a court of law. Maybe hotpoint will come up with some other precedents that do give us a classification, but your interpretation of the rules can not be taken as the legal position.

I would like to see markers classified in their own category within the area of airguns as non lethal barreled sport equipment . Gives us special compensations AND gives us the safety blanket of all the air guns out there.

Muzzle energy is just that. The energy in the projectile at the exit point of the muzzle.

The formula for it is [speed(ft/sec) X speed(ft/sec) X weight(grains) ] divided by 450240 (fudge factor to take account of units).

Paintballs tend to vary from around 50-54 grains the last time I measured them (years ago )

manike