More History.   I wrote this article sometime in '93, just as Daisy and Crosman were getting ready to mass market paintball guns.   I made some good calls and I made some bad ones.  The arms race certainly isn't over.  Say Hello to the Super Semi's and HPA/N2 are certainly coming into their own.  For the most part I still believe what I wrote here, but if you want a clearer picture of my opinion on Paintball guns in the mass market see my rant Juvey Punks and Cheap Paintball guns.
 


Technology and the Game:
                                                A Look at the road ahead

B. Zane King
-Scarecrow-
1993

    Well, it looks like the arms race is finally over.  With the arrival of the semi-auto we may have taken the last major step in paintgun evolution.  I can remember years ago daydreaming about a semi-automatic paintgun.  Boy, would I have been the guy to beat.  You see, in my daydreams I was the ONLY one with a semi-auto.  What does the future hold for us?  It is difficult to say.  Nitrogen-charged guns seem to be something that looms on the horizon, but who knows if they will catch on.
 
    One thing I do expect to see, and something I have been anticipating for some time now is lower prices.  I have heard many complaints about the cost of paintguns.  Mostly these come from people who shoot firearms as well.  The manufacturers of paintguns are not deliberately jacking up the prices.  Paintgun manufacturers are small operations who can only build guns at a slow rate and must price their wares high to cover overhead.  With the entrance of Daisy and Crosman into the paintgun market, soon guns of reasonable quality will be available in department stores at low prices.  Mass market paintguns should drive prices down.  Daisy-made Stingrays are already on the shelves in Arkansas Wal-Mart stores.

    With paintguns now in arm's reach of the public the sport faces new challenges.  While there may soon be a few new players at the field there will almost certainly be a few more articles about paintball in the paper.  Probably in the Police Reports section.  Despite any efforts Daisy and Crosman make to ensure that their guns are used properly their will be those individuals who lack the good sense and maturity to follow the precautions.  Instances of 'Drive-bys', vandalism, and yes, eye injury, will go up.  We can expect to see a public outcry at some level to have paintguns themselves outlawed as a result of this change.  While I'm sure the various paintball associations and organizations are braced for this I suggest that we take additional steps, on our own, beforehand.

    I don't know but I suspect that both manufacturers have packed the boxes they intend to sell their guns in full of information about their proper use.  I was quite a bit younger when I bought my Splatmaster, too young to legally purchase the gun but nobody checked my I.D..  I knew everything then too, so I didn't bother to read the literature.  Soon after that, several of us bought the guns and we played anywhere we could avoid being thrown out of.  It was fortunate for us that not long after purchasing our Splatmasters we discovered a paintball publication that taught us a better way.  Because a magazine doesn't devote it's every word to dull technical jargon and safety precautions we would read them cover to cover.  Though it took time, we eventually learned to play safe and use our paintguns in a proper manner.

    I realize that including literature in the box is about the only way to reach the mass market paintgun buyers.  The only time most people will read the manual is after the gun blows a seal.  I suggest including something more interesting than the operating instructions.  Something that is interesting enough that it will be read.  A paintball primer.  A small tabloid with a field listing that is as complete as possible and containing entry level technical articles that would be of interest to new paintgun owners.  After all, when a player is new to gun handling they will very often unwittingly damage the gun.  Articles with the do's and dont's of the gun are easier to read than the dry 'techese' that manuals are written in.  The tabloid should show types of approved safety goggles and perhaps a few scary photos of what paintguns can do to unapproved goggles.  And some information on gun velocity and chronographs would be a must.  The tabloid should be photo-packed, a few pages of just text is enough to put anyone to sleep.  In my own opinion it would not be improper for this tabloid to contain advertisements for protective eye-wear.  The revenue for the cost of printing the tabloid would need to be generated somewhere anyway, the advertisements and field directory could generate this revenue.

    I think the paintball community and it's organizations could strike a deal with the manufacturers to include such a tabloid with every gun that was sold.  Fully educating new players to the in's and out's of the sport is a must if we want to avoid creating a new group of 'outlaw' players and 'outlaw' fields.  Those of us who have been in the sport for a while now can remember what that was like.  A bunch of players getting together using the guns they bought, wearing whatever goggles they could get their hands on, no chronograph.  There was always one or more members of the group who where tinkering with their guns to get more range and accuracy.  Velocity was not a consideration, and on the way home from the game every street-sign, cat, and dog was fair game.  We don't want to see a return of that era.

    The mass market gun buyer needs to be fully aware of the dangers of mishandling their gun and it's power sources.  Including the legal ramifications.  They need to be aware of velocity limits and have the information at hand to find the nearest field and chronograph.  Keep in mind that their are more Wal-Marts than paintball fields so there may be a great risk that the mass market buyer can't make it to a field.  In the Midwest no one is going to drive one hundred miles to pay someone to play in their woods when they have a forest in their back yard.  And they won't have access to a chronograph.  If nothing else, information should be provided on how to estimate a gun's velocity by measuring ball drop at range.  It would be better than nothing at all.
 
    I don't think that marketing paintguns to the public is such a bad idea.  If it wasn't for the mass-marketing of Splatmasters all those years ago I would not be a player myself.  But we need to make extra effort to insure that we don't just provide the fuel to feed a renewed anti-paintball effort.  I'm sure that Daisy and Crosman didn't go into this blindly, they see a potential for profit and only a minimal legal risk.  But we cannot say for certain if they had the good of the sport as a whole in mind.  That is the business of the rest of us.
 
-Scarecrow-

    P.S.  If my I.D. didn't get checked all those years ago do you think the sellers will bother checking anyone else's today?
  

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