Germany to ban Paintball/Airsoft ?

CrazyRabbit

Whilst airsoft is not directly mentioned, the article does state "agreed to outlaw all games in which players shoot at each other with pellets." which would probably include Airsoft.

Typical knee-jerk reaction by politicians looking for votes. And it shows just how easily it could be banned here.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/5291891/Germany-to-ban-paintball-in-wake-of-high-school-shooting.html

The German government is to ban paintball in response to the school shooting in which 16 people were killed in March.

Experts from Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and her Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners have agreed to outlaw all games in which players shoot at each other with pellets.

The governing parties say paintball trivialises violence and risks lowering the threshold for committing violent acts.

Infringements to the new rules, which the cabinet hopes to pass before a general election in September, could incur fines of up to 5,000 euros (£4,400).

A 17-year-old shot dead 15 people in the southwestern town of Winnenden, before killing himself in March, stunning many Germans and leading politicians to call for tighter gun rules.

The teenager shot many of his victims in the head with his father's legally registered pistol. His father, a member of a shooting club, had 15 guns at home – fourteen were locked in a gun closet as required by law but the pistol was in the bedroom.

Germany toughened its gun laws in 2002 after Robert Steinhauser, 19, shot dead 16 people before turning the gun on himself at a high school in the eastern German city of Erfurt.

The changes raised the minimum age for gun ownership to 21 from 18 and required gun buyers under 25 to present a certificate of medical and psychological health. Gun laws already required applicants to pass rigorous exams that can take up to a year.

The new rules would also grant authorities more rights in conducting checks with people owning guns, the sources said.

Sources in the SPD said the parties were also moving towards on agreement on the creation of a nationwide weapons register and were considering setting up biometric security locks for weapons' stores.

irishlostboy

people dont kill people, guns do. good job no germans stab people, or they wouldn't be able to cut slices of cake ever again...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/20/2451770.htm
germany has some serious issues with accepting their violant side. i wonder where that came from?
personally i think all cars should be banned. they kill far more people than guns or knives put together. also stairs should also be banned for same reason.

on a more serious note, this is just a further example of society legislating for morality while diluting the focus on personal responsibility. it is an international trend that shows no sign of stopping. our government will do the same if it can. step 1. get every airsofter to register their aeg's etc. step 2. control and/ or ban them. seems a logical progression to me. or maybe i am too cinical. guess we will see...

thanks for the news article.

Hivemind187

... am I the only one who finds the illeberal rhetoric and compulsion do scream "Verbotten!" in Germany a shade ironic.

Will we be seeing book AEG burnings as well?

Chances are this will be seen for the idiotic over reaction most things like this are eventually seen for.

I also think this may have issues with context or accuracy. The Torygraph Telegraph isnt exactly a bastion of traditional journalism.

bullets

I'm surprised they did not mention Computer Games.
Ban them too they will make everyone more violent.

Also its about time they ban Cartoons,
all the violence between Buggs Bunney, Tom & Jerry...
is going to effect me later on in life.

~B

Leftyflip

irishlostboy wrote: »

people dont kill people, guns do.

No guns don't kill people, people kill people...
Alot of things can make it seem right to kill people,
certain genres of music, tv shows, movies, cartoons, the actions of world leaders in wars.
But I don't see how Germany baning airsoft or paintball would make any difference...

Single Malt

Leftyflip wrote: »

No guns don't kill people, people kill people...
Alot of things can make it seem right to kill people,
certain genres of music, tv shows, movies, cartoons, the actions of world leaders in wars.
But I don't see how Germany baning airsoft or paintball would make any difference...

But the way the German government goes on you would swear its the guns/videogames/etc. that kill people, not people themselves. Banning pastimes/hobbies will not make a more non-violent society. It breeds frustration and disillusionment. History should have taught us some valuable lessons, especially the Germans. I don't think the lesson is that prohibition works

Stercus Accidit

Godwin in 5, 4 ,3, 2......

TheDoc

Airsoft was recently struck out in Portugal according to a huge thread on the berget forums, its not banned but they have to use like see through plastic rifles.

It puts into perspective how lucky we are, and what fantastic work the current and previous IAA committees have done to keep us playing in the way airsoft should be played.

All the more reason for people to join and support the IAA. No doubt our ****ing remo government will be keeping tabs on the developements of airsoft tin other countries : /

desertstorm

To be honest i think the likes of Soldier of Fortune or COD5 with the blowing to shmithereens of people trivialises violence a good bit more than shooting plastic pellets at each other and learning a bit about fairplay... not that I have anything against video games

Toasty113

desertstorm wrote: »

To be honest i think the likes of Soldier of Fortune or COD5 with the blowing to shmithereens of people trivialises violence a good bit more than shooting plastic pellets at each other and learning a bit about fairplay... not that I have anything against video games

Yes but pointing 1:1 replicas of guns at people and pulling the trigger could very easily be seen as trivialising gun violence. That said so does every action movie. And also every other thing in the known universe that uses large amounts of violence, drugs, sex, drama, cartoon animals, disease, horror, etc, etc as a medium for entertainment will trivialise said thing. Long story short, were all f*****

That said, I'm not actually that bothered by it.

o1s1n

desertstorm wrote: »

To be honest i think the likes of Soldier of Fortune or COD5 with the blowing to shmithereens of people trivialises violence a good bit more than shooting plastic pellets at each other and learning a bit about fairplay... not that I have anything against video games

The Germans have one of the strictest censorship boards when it comes to videogames in the world. Ever play the original German Carmageddon? Robots ffs.

They are the reason several games have seen censorship in Europe as some developers aren't arsed releasing different games for different European countries. So we all just get the censored version.

mle1324

o1s1n wrote: »

The Germans have one of the strictest censorship boards when it comes to videogames in the world. Ever play the original German Carmageddon? Robots ffs.

They are the reason several games have seen censorship in Europe as some developers aren't arsed releasing different games for different European countries. So we all just get the censored version.

sorry for going off topic a bit but the likes of 'Grand Theft Auto' would be a BIG no in germany,correct? Is that how strict they are.

Fallschirmjager

ah yes... western 'progressives'. We are all so dumb that we all need to be 'taken care' of by the big caring government.. They obviously have the best interests of all the people in mind, thats why they can make a decision like this...


'The governing parties say paintball trivialises violence'

so you see, they KNOW, no proof is needed, no discussion...THEY KNOW, you and I are just too dumb to realise it yet.

Genghiz Cohen

Don't mention the war!

ScumLord

desertstorm wrote: »

To be honest i think the likes of Soldier of Fortune or COD5 with the blowing to shmithereens of people trivialises violence a good bit more than shooting plastic pellets at each other and learning a bit about fairplay... not that I have anything against video games

I don't know, I remember playing operation flashpoint and thinking to myself that I'd make a terrible soldier. The fact is in these games you don't last, you die over and over again, even though you've got almost super human abilitys. I don't understand how people could overlook this fact. I don't ever want to go to war, in a full scale war I know for a fact I'm more likely to die than not.

For the Germans it's understandable that they'd react this way with the baggage their carrying. At the same time i remember walking through a shopping center in Berlin and being pretty shocked to see a shop with all kinds of handguns in the window. Having a gun shop in the middle of a popular shopping center right in the heart of Berlin lead me to believe guns are popular in Germany. Maybe try making real guns less available before you start picking on the toys.

BioHazRd

mle1324 wrote: »

sorry for going off topic a bit but the likes of 'Grand Theft Auto' would be a BIG no in germany,correct? Is that how strict they are.

Quite a few games are banned or severely restricted in Germany
At last years WCG finals counterstrike and halo had to played in a closed off area which had admittance restricted to over 18s only, and Gears of War which featured in the previous world finals was not featured last year as it is banned in Germany.
As far as I know some games are heavily modified to be played in Germany (less blood and body part explosions etc)

Hivemind187

BioHazRd wrote: »

Quite a few games are banned or severely restricted in Germany
At last years WCG finals counterstrike and halo had to played in a closed off area which had admittance restricted to over 18s only, and Gears of War which featured in the previous world finals was not featured last year as it is banned in Germany.
As far as I know some games are heavily modified to be played in Germany (less blood and body part explosions etc)

Heh, its always struck me as one of humanities greatest faults. There seems to be this perverse desire to invest inanimate objects or harmless pursuits with characteristics they simply dont have.

Video games are blamed for individuals who comit horrific murders or go on crime spree's. This implies that video games have a causal component. Which in turn implies that it should be causing many more people to go bat-**** loco.

Strange how it doesnt.

So to airsoft is blamed for and very nearly directly linked to alledged rising crime levels (by several politicians). This implies either airsoft guns are a) dangerous (we have the science and practical evidence to show that they are not - with a specific definition of "dangerous") b) somehow eroding societies aversion to murderous activity or c) actively turning people they touch into crime committing zombies.

It is the imbuing of these things with the qualities that they do not possess that leads to much of the hysteria surrounding them. Its nothing new to humanity either! We've been at it as long as we've been able to form coherent thought. see: Rascism, homophobia, anti-semitism or any one of a thousand other petty and superficial attitudes societies have developed (I'm not suggesting for a moment that the plight of airsofters and the mild persecution/oppression we face is anything near the level of these more heinous philosophies but the mechanism remains the same).

In most cases it is really less about the icon that society picks than about having a vessel into which individuals can pour their fears and anxieties. Giving those social paranoia's a tangible and concrete form allows people to feel as though they are doing something constructive to control their lives. It's illusory (and anyone with an objective mind can see that) but it provides the same benefit to the "hater" as would dealing with the real issue, namely the psychological release valve on their personal neuroses.

In other words, it helps the average joe to cope with the fears he has of his world to be able to blame something - anything! - and to demand that something be done about it, thereby removing any responsibility on his part to make positive action and blame both the focus of his emotion and those he holds responsible for doing something about it (usually the authorities/cops/government etc).

Whats truly fascinating is the level to which the rational mind must be suspended and critical faculties must fail in order for this kind of thinking to develop as well as how deeply emotional the reactions seem to be. Its enough for an accusation to be made or a causal link to be alluded to for a large percentage of the vocal population (not nessesscarily the population at large) to begin demanding censorship and that people "think of the children".

One wonders why there is no hysteria surrounding the number of people killed by penicillin or insulin or epinephrin (sp?) wrongly prescribed by emergency service technicians every year. The numbers for people who die at the hands of doctors making mistakes is staggering compared to our half dozen chipped teeth and one dislocated knee cap in 2 years of "combat simulation".

... I'll try decaff tomorow.:D

ditpaintball

Germany has one of the biggest paintball industries in europe, so if this ban goes ahead, then it may have some large consequences for the tournament side.

http://www.paintballer.ie/world-paintball-news/4315-paintball-may-banned-germany.html

I have a feeling though that it is all talk and nothing will come of it. They will be banning cars next to combat accidents...

Fallschirmjager

ditpaintball wrote: »

Germany has one of the biggest paintball industries in europe, so if this ban goes ahead, then it may have some large consequences for the tournament side.

http://www.paintballer.ie/world-paintball-news/4315-paintball-may-banned-germany.html

I have a feeling though that it is all talk and nothing will come of it. They will be banning cars next to combat accidents...

well...lets look at the positives....this is a HUGE business opportunity here:

why shouldnt Ireland become the biggest paintball/airsoft industry, hell if the germans dont want it...fine, we can take it...

what we need is some young entrepreneur to go git it...

also, back to my old rants about business...if we really push our industry (and to be honest the old airsoft vs paintball bs, never made sense to me, except of course airsoft is obviously better ).

The good news about a downturn is it breeds a new type of person who decides to risk it. Thats what we need now...the risk takers. Build better sites, bigger sites and run international games. Build it and they will come.

For example, why not run a weekend game on one of the deserted islands off the west coast? Do chopper runs to land people as part of the game, hell even do parachute drops for gods sake! The belief we all have is that people wont pay for stuff like that or its too dangerous. The reality is...people will. Of course you will get the usual, insurance this, insurance that, what if someone dies but suppose for 300 or 500 euro or a grand some ex-paratropper from the UK or the 82nd or 101st airborne would show you how to drop with your gear as part of a game. are you seriously telling me people would not pay for that...i can assure you, you would have them lining up around the block for stuff like that from all across europe and the world. Do boat assault, the opportunities are endless! The difference is between people who think you can versus a lot of people who have been programmed to think...its too dangerous, or its too expensive...or what if someone dies. The reality is people will do it AND the will pay. We should look at the Swedish game as only the starting line....

Ireland has a great opportunity to grab this business by the neck from all across Europe. We have the countryside, we now have the need for jobs. Take the manufacturing jobs...offer them reasons to move here. The IDA should be crawling all over this. If our govt was smart (yes i know regardless of party, never use those 2 words in the same sentence), they should be changing our laws to say it wont happen here and we will offer inducements for those companies to move, the should do the same in the UK. If you dont want it, fine...we will take it.

all we need now is someone with the ability to go take it...to quote alec baldwin from glengarry glenrosss

'its there waiting for you!! They want to GIVE YOU THEIR MONEY!!

you know what you need in this industry...you need brass balls...that what you need....'

in fact here is the youtube link....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-AXTx4PcKI

think of the opportunity...

Hivemind187

Fallschirmjager wrote: »

well...lets look at the positives....this is a HUGE business opportunity here:

why shouldnt Ireland become the biggest paintball/airsoft industry, hell if the germans dont want it...fine, we can take it...

what we need is some young entrepreneur to go git it...

also, back to my old rants about business...if we really push our industry (and to be honest the old airsoft vs paintball bs, never made sense to me, except of course airsoft is obviously better ).

The good news about a downturn is it breeds a new type of person who decides to risk it. Thats what we need now...the risk takers. Build better sites, bigger sites and run international games. Build it and they will come.

For example, why not run a weekend game on one of the deserted islands off the west coast? Do chopper runs to land people as part of the game, hell even do parachute drops for gods sake! The belief we all have is that people wont pay for stuff like that or its too dangerous. The reality is...people will. Of course you will get the usual, insurance this, insurance that, what if someone dies but suppose for 300 or 500 euro or a grand some ex-paratropper from the UK or the 82nd or 101st airborne would show you how to drop with your gear as part of a game. are you seriously telling me people would not pay for that...i can assure you, you would have them lining up around the block for stuff like that from all across europe and the world. Do boat assault, the opportunities are endless! The difference is between people who think you can versus a lot of people who have been programmed to think...its too dangerous, or its too expensive...or what if someone dies. The reality is people will do it AND the will pay. We should look at the Swedish game as only the starting line....

Ireland has a great opportunity to grab this business by the neck from all across Europe. We have the countryside, we now have the need for jobs. Take the manufacturing jobs...offer them reasons to move here. The IDA should be crawling all over this. If our govt was smart (yes i know regardless of party, never use those 2 words in the same sentence), they should be changing our laws to say it wont happen here and we will offer inducements for those companies to move, the should do the same in the UK. If you dont want it, fine...we will take it.

all we need now is someone with the ability to go take it...to quote alec baldwin from glengarry glenrosss

'its there waiting for you!! They want to GIVE YOU THEIR MONEY!!

you know what you need in this industry...you need brass balls...that what you need....'

in fact here is the youtube link....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-AXTx4PcKI

think of the opportunity...

Anyone know a bank thats still doing high risk loans. I already have the parachutist.

Lemming

Hivemind187 wrote: »

Anyone know a bank thats still doing high risk loans. I already have the parachutist.

What? you just volunteered me? :pac:

ditpaintball

Fallschirmjager wrote: »

well...lets look at the positives....this is a HUGE business opportunity here:

why shouldnt Ireland become the biggest paintball/airsoft industry, hell if the germans dont want it...fine, we can take it...

what we need is some young entrepreneur to go git it...

.......

If only.... remember paintball markers are still classed as firearms over here. There are less than 100 people who play seriously here, where as in germany there are 1,000's

OzCam

The Deserted Island idea would be wonderful, but the insurance for it is likely to be well into four figures. And you've still got the 1J limit, so anyone coming from overseas will still either have to downgrade before they arrive, or rent a gun locally. So that kills the idea stone dead, right there. Pity.

TheDoc

OzCam wrote: »

The Deserted Island idea would be wonderful, but the insurance for it is likely to be well into five figures. And you've still got the 1J limit, so anyone coming from overseas will still either have to downgrade before they arrive, or rent a gun locally. So that kills the idea stone dead, right there. Pity.

Wouldn't consider it dead at all to be fair

Witcher

OzCam wrote: »

The Deserted Island idea would be wonderful, but the insurance for it is likely to be well into five figures. And you've still got the 1J limit, so anyone coming from overseas will still either have to downgrade before they arrive, or rent a gun locally. So that kills the idea stone dead, right there. Pity.

Way to kill an idea.:pac:

Rhinocharge

Mail from some German firends of mine.

"They plan to do that – but there are much people fighting against this – I think it will need 2-3 weeks until we know what will happen. I believe that they cannot ban it completely, they only can make more restrictions and so on, but of course I also do not know exactly what will happen.

We now must wait…

PS: But whatever happens, we anyhow still can supply you…that will not harm all our own special things."

German laws have both paintball & airsoft under heavy restrictions as it is.
Majority of businesses have a petition you can sign.
Trade will be unhindered.

Just the powers keeping the masses under check.

Toherinator

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

A 17-year-old shot dead 15 people in the southwestern town of Winnenden, before killing himself in March, stunning many Germans and leading politicians to call for tighter gun rules.

The teenager shot many of his victims in the head with his father's legally registered pistol. His father, a member of a shooting club, had 15 guns at home – fourteen were locked in a gun closet as required by law but the pistol was in the bedroom.

Germany toughened its gun laws in 2002 after Robert Steinhauser, 19, shot dead 16 people before turning the gun on himself at a high school in the eastern German city of Erfurt.

I wonder did either of these guys play airsoft?????

There has to be something seriously pyscologically wrong with a person who dose these things. I play airsoft and video games regularly and i wouldn't even dream of shotting anybody. I am pretty sure most people would have the same answer.

Stercus Accidit

Toherinator wrote: »

I wonder did either of these guys play airsoft?????

There has to be something seriously pyscologically wrong with a person who dose these things. I play airsoft and video games regularly and i wouldn't even dream of shotting anybody. I am pretty sure most people would have the same answer.

People see fickle similarities in things they don't understand, and rather than being open minded and accepting they don't understand the thing in question, and investigating it and attempting to understand it, they come to a knee jerk conclusion and lump it in category 'b', the category of not normal things that don't affect them so couldn't give a rats ass who does care about it.

You see it all the time, people en masse refuse to accept they don't know something or that they could be wrong or that heaven forbid they don't understand something, and then create a quick explanation for themselves and stick to it, and thats the well spring of stupidity.


Compound that with a country with national guilt, and a habit of over censoring itself in an attempt to show the world it has changed or is making up for the past (again a lack of logic here, banning computer games and airsoft/paintball isn't making amends for anything, it just may be perceived as such) and you get the latest airsoft news in Germany.

I hope logic prevails there, and this idea is quashed, but it takes a strong person to stand up to the child protection over reaction brigade and say that this is an over reaction, much less likely a politician.

I hope for the best for the german airsofters, its not a nice feeling when you know you could lose your sport so easily or that it may happen soon. A lot of us can empathise with that.

Lukekul

Funny how these school shootings happen in countries where guns a readily available such as America and Germany, but when they happen a scapegoat is always sought like Video Games or now Airsoft/Paintball.

Utreg

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Don't mention the war!

'They started it!'

Shiva

Toherinator wrote: »

I wonder did either of these guys play airsoft?????

The guy from Winnenden did, apparently. The newspaper reports didnt come right out and call it airsoft, but they quoted "sources" and "friends" who said he used to regularly go into the woods with his friends "to shoot BBs at each other".

Having said that....in the reports I read, the friends and sources weren't named, so its reliability is suspect.

Fallschirmjager

Lukekul wrote: »

Funny how these school shootings happen in countries where guns a readily available such as America and Germany, but when they happen a scapegoat is always sought like Video Games or now Airsoft/Paintball.

you mean in the same way that guns are sought as a scapegoat?

RorTHorN

They should just ban Paintball!!!! LOL

o1s1n

RorTHorN wrote: »

They should just ban Paintball!!!! LOL

And similarly, I should just ban you (LOL)

But I won't. As I'm willing to give you a chance. No more trolling please. It doesn't go down too well in this forum.

Rew

RorTHorN wrote: »

They should just ban Paintball!!!! LOL

We should stick together or we will be picked off one by one, this isn't them or us. So lets not have a paintball/Airsoft flame war.

Stercus Accidit

Ancient threads resurrection unwritten rules 101;


- Resurrect thread due to new information, relevant to original topic, important new information worthy of re-opening discussion. = OK


- Resurrect thread due to desire to post sh1te joke. = Fail/Gtfo

RorTHorN

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

Ancient threads resurrection unwritten rules 101;


- Resurrect thread due to new information, relevant to original topic, important new information worthy of re-opening discussion. = OK


- Resurrect thread due to desire to post sh1te joke. = Fail/Gtfo

Apologies if I was insensitive!!

Stercus Accidit

RorTHorN wrote: »

Apologies if I was insensitive!!

Accepted! No worries, old topic and all that, I blame the google.

bluestripe93

they shouldn't ban airsoft or paintball if he shot people with a real gun they should ban the real gun not the toy gun thats shoots plastic bbs or paintballs,
its not the gun its the idiot that pulls the trigger

Quazzie

Rhinocharge wrote: »

– I think it will need 2-3 weeks until we know what will happen.

Any updates from your German friend or was it just pre election talk from politicians promising all sorts.

Rhinocharge

Quazzie wrote: »

Any updates from your German friend or was it just pre election talk from politicians promising all sorts.

Nothing, the usual bluff. All talk, nothing more.