US TV show takes a pot-shot at paintball (Vid link inside)

[Matski]

If you did the research you could no doubt check the records of various accident and emergency departments across the states.....

Tyger-Is it not illegal to sell a marker to someone <18 years of age in the states? Cos id want to be suing the shop keeper for being an agent of the incident aswell as gross negligence! The teenager who did it can't help being an inbred careless dumbass, but the guy who sold him the gun could have prevented the whole thing. Going after pball and the manufacturers is crazy, obviously.

EDIT: Ok just watched rest of the vid....as sale of markers is illegal....I guess its just like the guys who sue Marlboro after smoking 40 cigs a day for 40 years and getting cancer, 'blame the product not the user' and their affiliates

 

[Buddha 3]

I kinda got the feeling the report was cut short...good to see though that they did point out that 'real' paintballers are rather safety conscious.

Matski, it could very well be possible that the kid's parents bought the gun, so as such the shopkeeper can't really be blamed.

 

[Matski]

Ok, having a warm heart I can let him off.......lynch the parents!!

 

[knobbs]

I don't know of any law that requires a purchaser to be at least 18.

And sue the shops? That's complete stupidity! It's just another case of making the guilty party a victim. I guess in that case I could sue a gift shop if a kid threw a ceramic statue at me because they didn't stop a purchaser with bad intentions.

 

[knobbs]

Oh, and I didn't really think the report was as bad as it first let on. They used scare tactics at first, for sure, but everything they said was more accurate (don't know about the numbers, though). They talked about proper safety gear and showed the safe side of the sport.

 

[eatmypaint]

the law is 18 but i brought my first marker 'gat' when i was 15 and i brought it not my dad or mum

 

[Mario]

inside edition?!?! isn't that like the national enquirer of the TV world?

 

[Gyroscope]

Yes... wierd how good the reporting actually was. A little alarmist, but not too bad.

 

[dr.strangelove]

Aside from the fact that they used video from about 10 years ago to show "arena" paintball, and that the drive-by video they showed was shot literally about 5 years ago, (I remember seeing it on Dateline when the teens involved were first charged, and that was right about the time I was just getting into paintball, which was a good 5 years past), it wasn't the worst reporting. Scaremongering? Well, yeah. And I can't say I completely trust their stats, but at least they made mention at the end of the fact that "real" paintball is actually pretty safe. Certainly no worse than what people have seen on "King of Queens", "LA Law", "Baywatch" and the rest of the shows that have had mask-free, cammo clad, militaristic wars featuring paintball, which by the way, probably get alot higher viewership than "Inside Edition" (personally, I didn't even know that show was still on the air)

 

[ices]

Its funny how parents go from buying a suposedly "safe" toy in their mind to suing the manufacturers and jumping on the the "ban this now" brigade.