[Evil Fingers]

Copied and Pasted from 68caliber.com

http://68caliber.com/wordpress/?p=1975

Quote

This is what happens when you misbehave and mis-use your paintball gear.

The police department of Cedar Rapids Iowa is going to be asking the City Council to ban the carrying of paintball, bb and other similar projectile shooting devices in public due to a rash of vandalism.

Because these devices are legal to own and because the projectiles are essentially untraceable, even when police catch someone with a shooter in the vicinity of vandalism, they generally can’t prove anything.

The local police chief notes that several surrounding towns already have similar ordinances and that requiring owners to carry their guns unloaded in a sealed contain will both aid them in catching vandals AND will help police avoid SHOOTING citizens who are armed with look-a-likes.

Similar local laws have either already been on the books or have been enacted over the past 25 years as a direct response to the advent of and misuse of paintball guns. (Same with BB guns, but BB guns are someone else’s look-out.)

This time, the request for the law follows a weekend in which over 150 reports of vandalism with BB guns were reported.

The Cedar Rapids police department receives an average of 1170 reports of vandalism using BB, paintball and air guns EACH YEAR.

The city has a population of roughly 125,000. That’s one case of vandalism per 100 inhabitants and that is just WAY too visible.

Just one city in one relatively under-populated state. If we stretch the numbers to cover the entire country, we could be looking at 2.7 million vandalism incidents per year. That number bears absolutely no scientific scrutiny whatsoever, but it certainly gives an idea of the potential scope of the problem.

More importantly, the Cedar Rapids Police Department’s action demonstrates exactly what happens when you don’t address your own problems - others step in to take care of them for you - usually in ways that are unacceptable to you but seem perfectly reasonable to them.

You can read the entire article HERE - including the estimated quarter of a million dollars of property damage caused each year.

Go ahead and Discuss this on going problem.

[TechPB-Mike]

I wouldn't doubt those numbers at all

For every case of paintball vandalism that is reported to the police, there are THOUSANDS of instances that aren't. Most people don't take the time to call the police, wait 2 hours of an officer to show up, spend another hour filling out paperwork to report something like this.

And one person can commit hundreds of acts of vandalism per year if they wanted to. They can constantly be out, shooting cars, shooting homes, night after night and rarely would it be reported to the police.

People don't fight back by filing police reports, they fight back by voting "NO!" when a field tries to get permits to open up.

As a matter of fact, on the way to PSP Phoenix, my team counted over 20+ city signs that were shot by paintball guns as we approached the event. Basically paintball players were pointing their guns out of the cars, and shooting stop signs, bus stops and anything they could as they drove up the event. You could tell you were getting close because more and more things were vandalized as we got closer to the event.

"It's not good for the sport" make me laugh everytime I hear it.

Most paintball players have absolutely no clue how much the general public & law makers absolutely HATE paintball for this exact type of bullshit. It was the same story 20 years ago, it's the same story today. This is why no one takes paintball seriously, and everyone avoids it. To everyone outside of the industry, we're just a bunch of vandals who shoot up cars and houses for fun.

[tear4]

Most of these cases are people with walmart guns that they bought for twenty bucks going on a night shooting spree because they think it is funny. It sucks that the people who play paintball all the time get punished for the mistakes of stupid people looking to do damage

[iowa_paintballer]

how can we get walmart to stop selling paintball in the stores?

and btw, i live in cedar rapids too, 150 windows shot out from a bb guns... its agg!

[PbGoods]

I would have to agree with Mike on this...

In my really small town (population of about 3,000 residents) there were many many cases of vandalism involving paintball but no one ever took the time to file a police report. I can remember on Halloween being shot multiple times by people who thought it would be "cool" to do a drive by on little kids wanting to get candy. They do not realize the amount of harm they can cause, what if that stray paintball that was shot ending up hitting someone in the eye?

Eventually, paintball got voted to be banned in my town and I did not know that.. Almost lost all my gear when I was working on my gear in my back yard making sure everything was working properly. I now have to drive to a field to do any testing.

[Romeo]

I really doubt just stopping Walmart from selling paintball supplies will in turn reduce paintball vandalism. Any run of the mill guy can purchase paintball gear from the various internet sites and proshops all around. If people want to vandalize something they will; its just a shame that they use paintball guns as a means to vandalize.

[tear4]

Most of the people who do this don't want to spend proshop prices on a good gun they just want something for a cheap laugh to cause damage.

[Derek]

I agree with Mike.

I've personally had people drive by and shoot at my parents' cars and house after I got back from a day of paintballing. Maybe I made some enemies at the field? lol. If that's the case, it's not ALL noobs with Wal-mart guns that do the vandalism.

[Critz522]

PbGoods, on Mar 5 2009, 04:12 PM, said:

I would have to agree with Mike on this...

In my really small town (population of about 3,000 residents) there were many many cases of vandalism involving paintball but no one ever took the time to file a police report. I can remember on Halloween being shot multiple times by people who thought it would be "cool" to do a drive by on little kids wanting to get candy. They do not realize the amount of harm they can cause, what if that stray paintball that was shot ending up hitting someone in the eye?

Eventually, paintball got voted to be banned in my town and I did not know that.. Almost lost all my gear when I was working on my gear in my back yard making sure everything was working properly. I now have to drive to a field to do any testing.

i guess its not a state wide law(i live in NJ too), in my town, you can do what you want on your own property, but still, someone was throwing paintballs at the windows in one of the classrooms at my school, it pissed me off so much.

[Bang_Switch]

I wouldn't doubt those numbers either.

A friend of mine from another forum(non paintball related) I frequent got lit up walking home from the store by a bunch of idiots driving past in a car recently actually. These were some of the results





He was lucky he was only hit in the body.

[NeyugN]

good god, that mark is terrible.

Its bad enough that people shoot out of fields or their backyards, but at people at THAT HIGH of a velocity is just ridiculous. No paintball should ever be shot that hot...

[sticktodrum]

Paintball/BB vandalism is indeed very bad. However I won't believe those numbers for a second. Given how much communities, boards, police depts. and practically everyone else hates paintball, I wouldn't put it passed exaggerated figures.

It's a little hard to believe that these numbers are anything concrete. Just look at the vague language that is used. "#### reports or vandalism."

This is with BB's and paintballs. A report is some scared asshole in a house that hears a bee fly into a closed window, and thinks the smudge is a paintball. A sting on the leg could have been an airsoft shot.

Try looking at the figures of "reports" of domestic violence. I can only speak for NYC, but I couldn't tell you how many "reports" in my building of so-called violence were children hitting their parents with pillows.

Of course, none of these are concrete examples, and it's all anecdotal, but you guys should look at the media/communities with the same disdain, and even more skepticism than the idiotic kids who actually go out and shoot something/someone down.

Try to think of the types of people who are writing the stories, and filing the reports. Angry parents who's kids want to get into paintball, and they'll fling whatever shit they can to keep it from happening.

Instead of just taking some half-assed low-brow report from a relatively small town at face value, look at the numbers, and try to recreate the situations. What do they consider a "report?" Is it a full fledged police report, where paperwork has been filed because property was damaged, or someone was hurt? Or is each "report" pertaining to each mark of paint on someone's mailbox? Each clack of a BB on someone's window?

So a couple of kids in a car empty out some pods of paint in their neighborhood, or one close by. How many "reports" will come from that one incident?

What are the real numbers? With completely outrageous claims like that, they are burdened with presenting the outrageous evidence, with solid, defined numbers and what those numbers entail.

Instead, as with everything else, they use typical, albeit EFFECTIVE, fear mongering to sway the public to hate something that really isn't as big of an issue as they make it to be.

Not to mention, that of course (like with music and video games), the parents go unquestioned, and get off scott-free for the wrong doings of their own children.

Yes, these people who hurt others and damage property are hurting the sport, but so are the mindless, self-righteous pricks who amplify the situation.

[Iram]

I don't believe those statistics. They may be accurate for one small town, but that's about it. If that town was a token representation of the US, we'd be seeing a huge amount of paintball vandalism. Personally, I've never seen something like that. If there was one incident per 100 people in the US per year, I'd probably see at least shot up house/sign/car every week during the summer when I'm out jogging.

It's definately a problem. The fact that someone was shooting signs near the PSP is a little disturbing, but it could easily be a couple of punks who bought some cheap crap from a vendor there, and decided to test it out on the drive home. I sure hope it's not PSP players doing that.

EDIT: The original has a large number of grammer errors. That's fine on a forum (for the most part), but a newspaper should have people reading these before posting them. The fact that they don't, or that they are missing things, casts doubts in my mind on the accuracy of the claims.

This post has been edited by Iram: 05 March 2009 - 06:09 PM

[Boogie]

I don't really have anything to say about those statistics, but they banned paintball guns from being discharged within city limits in Lexington, KY. The only time anyone can shoot a paintball gun there is inside an indoor arena. The really bad part is since they voted to extend the city limits to the county line, paintball is effectively banned in all of Fayette county, which a good part of it is still rural.
To the comment above about how keeping walmart from selling paintball products won't eliminate vandalism, no it won't eliminate paintball related vandalism altogether, but it might help reduce it since Joe-the-fuckhead can't just walk into walmart and buy some cheap-ass BE gun to shoot up the town with. I would think that many vandals would likely find something else to vandalize their "hood" before they'd go to the trouble of finding a local paintball shop (which are becoming few and far between around here) or ordering their vandalizin' supplies on the net.

This post has been edited by Boogie: 05 March 2009 - 06:20 PM

[D.K.]

So so sad. And to think. Real Teams could've used that paint.

[MrSandwich]

Lots of players don't love paintball, they just care about the adrenaline hit. If paintball dies, they'll fight tigers or something

[Iram]

Boogie, on Mar 5 2009, 06:19 PM, said:

I don't really have anything to say about those statistics, but they banned paintball guns from being discharged within city limits in Lexington, KY. The only time anyone can shoot a paintball gun there is inside an indoor arena. The really bad part is since they voted to extend the city limits to the county line, paintball is effectively banned in all of Fayette county, which a good part of it is still rural.

That was a very useful post. I was actually thinking about seeing what it would take to get transfered from Massachusetts to Lexington, KY. I had no idea paintball was a legal issue there. Thanks.

[Evil Fingers]

Iram, on Mar 5 2009, 05:35 PM, said:

Boogie, on Mar 5 2009, 06:19 PM, said:

I don't really have anything to say about those statistics, but they banned paintball guns from being discharged within city limits in Lexington, KY. The only time anyone can shoot a paintball gun there is inside an indoor arena. The really bad part is since they voted to extend the city limits to the county line, paintball is effectively banned in all of Fayette county, which a good part of it is still rural.

That was a very useful post. I was actually thinking about seeing what it would take to get transfered from Massachusetts to Lexington, KY. I had no idea paintball was a legal issue there. Thanks.

Lexington isnt the only city that placed in an Ordinance in the Banning of Paintball Guns, BB Guns and Airsoft Guns, because its the same here in San Francisco, Ca.

[Boogie]

Iram, on Mar 5 2009, 08:35 PM, said:

Boogie, on Mar 5 2009, 06:19 PM, said:

I don't really have anything to say about those statistics, but they banned paintball guns from being discharged within city limits in Lexington, KY. The only time anyone can shoot a paintball gun there is inside an indoor arena. The really bad part is since they voted to extend the city limits to the county line, paintball is effectively banned in all of Fayette county, which a good part of it is still rural.

That was a very useful post. I was actually thinking about seeing what it would take to get transfered from Massachusetts to Lexington, KY. I had no idea paintball was a legal issue there. Thanks.

I will say though that there are still a few fields within an hour drive from there, one being just across the county line, so I wouldn't completely count it out, but yeah the paintball scene isn't exactly favorable compared to other parts of the country.

[PrometheanFlame]

The fucked up part about it is that even if paintball becomes banned, the people that went around vandalizing and shit will just find something else to do to antagonize society. Making it illegal won't solve a thing. You've got to catch the people doing it. Nab a car full of teens and toss 'em in jail (overnight), then put it in the paper that these kids were imprisoned and their shit confiscated, you'll see a drop-off in that kind of activity in the area. It's just that you've gotta catch them, is all...and that's the hard part.

Maybe it would be less of an issue if paintball manufacturers were required by law to use non-staining fills? If it just takes a squirt of the hose to get the splatter off, it's not as big a deal.