O
ollytheosteo
Guest
Hey Ho- what a lot of shouting.
Thanks to Russ for giving clear answers to the questions I posed earlier (eventually
)- I should point out that I wasn't at the event in question but instead collected what I thought were the most important points raised by others, which were more relevant than the foaming accusations raised by some that Russ actually responded to with legal silliness. I don't, unlike some on this thread, have any axe to grind re the PA and I actually count Russ, Gilly and Hatts a some of my favourite people in the sport, due to their genuine passion for our silly game and their willingness to work themselves to death for an event only to be slagged off by internet monkeyboys with personality deficiencies and no logic or sense whatsoever. I've kept a close eye on the ramping controversy and the legal situation of paintball in the UK; as someone who holds a shotgun certificate and has seen whole sections of the shooting community vanish overnight I am aware of how fragile our situation is and I don't feel that ramping poses any threat to our sport from a legal point of view, and thus must try and put to bed a few of more stupid arguments that are always bandied around in these debates.
The paintball marker falls outside current UK firearms legislation for the following reason- under UK law a firearm is defined as a "lethal barreled weapon". Whilst markers do have barrels, they arguably fall outside the definition of a weapon and are defined as non-lethal due to the frangible nature of their intended ammunition. What this means is that at present under UK law paintball markers are not subject to any regulation save for those that the industry has very responsibly adopted themselves- not selling to kids etc. The reason we have been left alone up to now is that people like Steve Bull have done an amazing job (mostly free from the burden of recognition or gratitude) in showing the Home Office that the UK paintball industry is prepared to police itself, and it was with this in mind that full-auto markers have been kept off Uk retailer's shelves for the most part. Full-auto and assisted ROF markers have never been illegal in the UK any more than full-auto water pistols, becuase in the eyes of the law they fall into similar catagories- non-lethal non-weapons. The preponderance of gun cheats etc has led to a response being required from a safety point of view before any accidents cause the law to be re-examined and markers possibly banned or controlled, and the PA's solution is as workable as any, and represent no legal threat to paintball in the UK- instead they demonstrate a willingness to deal with problems before they arise that the HO finds very appealing.
On a side note- if you want a real and imminent threat to the legal status of paintball in the UK look in two places- firstly the tackle and gun shops selling cheap markers and bags of months-old paintballs to anyone who wants one; they don't have any stake in UK paintball and if markers are banned due to one of their customers blinding some poor sod they stand to lose very little. Secondly, the rise in popularity of non-frangible projectiles designed to be fired from a marker- I know they're a great idea for training and you really really need some but give an HO wallah a modern marker with the velocity maxed out and loaded with rubber paintballs and the "non-lethal" status would disappear overnight, along with a large chunk of UK paintball. Airsofters risk problems firing a .2g plastic ball at over 377fps- our balls are a lot bigger.
As far as the ramping debate is concerned the same old horse**** keeps getting repeated over and over.
The only way for gun cheats to be eliminated is for the manufacturers to supply sealed boards that are tamper proof and incapable of being reprogrammed. I leave it up to you to decide if that is possible- personally i think it could be if the will was there, but with top-end markers all using ROF's far beyond human possibility as a selling point and paint sales kept healthy that will falls prey to market forces yet again. I am personally sickened by the thought that players are adding chips and boards to their guns just in order to blatantly cheat, but they do, they are and they will and we cannot stop them.
In the absence of controls over shots per pull, a ROF cap is the only workable option and PACT timers are a great way of doing this if you have enough of them and their use is understood. The only downside is you need to have enough to use them on field- asking players to shoot as fast as they can is useless as a test; instead you need to monitor guns in play and pull anyone going over 15bps. As far as ramping to 15 is concerned, I don't personally use it but as it doesn't endanger the sport, very few players even care enough to come on here and talk about it and the majority of reponses seem positive, then if you don't like it play somewhere else.
Thanks to Russ for giving clear answers to the questions I posed earlier (eventually
)- I should point out that I wasn't at the event in question but instead collected what I thought were the most important points raised by others, which were more relevant than the foaming accusations raised by some that Russ actually responded to with legal silliness. I don't, unlike some on this thread, have any axe to grind re the PA and I actually count Russ, Gilly and Hatts a some of my favourite people in the sport, due to their genuine passion for our silly game and their willingness to work themselves to death for an event only to be slagged off by internet monkeyboys with personality deficiencies and no logic or sense whatsoever. I've kept a close eye on the ramping controversy and the legal situation of paintball in the UK; as someone who holds a shotgun certificate and has seen whole sections of the shooting community vanish overnight I am aware of how fragile our situation is and I don't feel that ramping poses any threat to our sport from a legal point of view, and thus must try and put to bed a few of more stupid arguments that are always bandied around in these debates.The paintball marker falls outside current UK firearms legislation for the following reason- under UK law a firearm is defined as a "lethal barreled weapon". Whilst markers do have barrels, they arguably fall outside the definition of a weapon and are defined as non-lethal due to the frangible nature of their intended ammunition. What this means is that at present under UK law paintball markers are not subject to any regulation save for those that the industry has very responsibly adopted themselves- not selling to kids etc. The reason we have been left alone up to now is that people like Steve Bull have done an amazing job (mostly free from the burden of recognition or gratitude) in showing the Home Office that the UK paintball industry is prepared to police itself, and it was with this in mind that full-auto markers have been kept off Uk retailer's shelves for the most part. Full-auto and assisted ROF markers have never been illegal in the UK any more than full-auto water pistols, becuase in the eyes of the law they fall into similar catagories- non-lethal non-weapons. The preponderance of gun cheats etc has led to a response being required from a safety point of view before any accidents cause the law to be re-examined and markers possibly banned or controlled, and the PA's solution is as workable as any, and represent no legal threat to paintball in the UK- instead they demonstrate a willingness to deal with problems before they arise that the HO finds very appealing.
On a side note- if you want a real and imminent threat to the legal status of paintball in the UK look in two places- firstly the tackle and gun shops selling cheap markers and bags of months-old paintballs to anyone who wants one; they don't have any stake in UK paintball and if markers are banned due to one of their customers blinding some poor sod they stand to lose very little. Secondly, the rise in popularity of non-frangible projectiles designed to be fired from a marker- I know they're a great idea for training and you really really need some but give an HO wallah a modern marker with the velocity maxed out and loaded with rubber paintballs and the "non-lethal" status would disappear overnight, along with a large chunk of UK paintball. Airsofters risk problems firing a .2g plastic ball at over 377fps- our balls are a lot bigger.
As far as the ramping debate is concerned the same old horse**** keeps getting repeated over and over.
The only way for gun cheats to be eliminated is for the manufacturers to supply sealed boards that are tamper proof and incapable of being reprogrammed. I leave it up to you to decide if that is possible- personally i think it could be if the will was there, but with top-end markers all using ROF's far beyond human possibility as a selling point and paint sales kept healthy that will falls prey to market forces yet again. I am personally sickened by the thought that players are adding chips and boards to their guns just in order to blatantly cheat, but they do, they are and they will and we cannot stop them.
In the absence of controls over shots per pull, a ROF cap is the only workable option and PACT timers are a great way of doing this if you have enough of them and their use is understood. The only downside is you need to have enough to use them on field- asking players to shoot as fast as they can is useless as a test; instead you need to monitor guns in play and pull anyone going over 15bps. As far as ramping to 15 is concerned, I don't personally use it but as it doesn't endanger the sport, very few players even care enough to come on here and talk about it and the majority of reponses seem positive, then if you don't like it play somewhere else.
