German friends what is happening?

WhiteAce · Post by **WhiteAce** » 14 May 2009, 00:28

Panzergraf wrote:"Nations that trade liberty for security will deserve neither and lose both"

This is so true...

Shooter · Post by **Shooter** » 14 May 2009, 07:23

Sadly, yes! And Germany is such a nice country

Ober-Lix · Post by **Ober-Lix** » 14 May 2009, 10:04

This whole situation is basically there to distract from the financial crisis with wich the government has to deal with. As I said before, the new election is in summer and the polititians need to be seen of doing something. Never mind what, as long as it detracts from the crisis.

What puzzels me most is, In the Netherlands airsoft is banned but paintball is legal. Here in Germany they want ot ban paintball but airsoft has not being mentioned yet, just wargames.

conger · Post by **conger** » 14 May 2009, 11:13

It's easy to emotionally react especically if you are an airsofter.

My immediate reaction was was utter madness as well

Consider the source of the news ...

The breaking news is true ...

Yes there is a discussion and proposal
Yes it is presented as being heavy handed and dis-proportional

But the rest of the news information for the time being is sketcy at best ..... hmmmm!

The media don't know much about paintball or lazerdome/lazerquest
No law exists yet and the media are filling in the gaps with what 'they think' [they must fill up the paper with something, mostly conjecture in the early days]

None of the above suggest we should ignore this ... but it's early days still and time is needed to see how this develops.

What was this Faithless lyric .... "Fear is a WMD" ... this is scary stuff for sure ...

Long live airsoft and liberty

I wish the best for all our Airsoft and Paintball colleagues, German or not.

Conger Out

NL_Lexxie · Post by **NL_Lexxie** » 14 May 2009, 11:23

What I have noticed is that one newspaper talks about paintball and an other one about shooting pellets at each other.

Airsoft by itself is not banned in the Netherlands, but the replica's used are.
A paintball marker is legal because it does not look like a real gun.
Cosmetic upgrades of paintbal markers are also not allowed, some of these upgrades make you marker look like an M4.
Most paintball organisations in the Netherlands do not allow the use of tacvests and/or camo clothing. Just to give the sport a different image.

WhiteAce · Post by **WhiteAce** » 14 May 2009, 14:21

GOOD NEWS GUYS!!!!

"Der Spiegel" a leading German newpaper wrote this morning:

Entwarnung für die Freizeit-Rambos: Das geplante Paintball-Verbot wird vorerst nicht kommen, kündigt SPD-Innenpolitiker Wiefelspütz an. Erst mal soll geprüft werden, wie gefährlich das Spiel wirklich ist - das sieht auch die Union so.

Berlin - Das von der Großen Koalition geplante Paintball-Verbot ist offenbar vom Tisch. "In dieser Wahlperiode wird es mit Sicherheit zu keinem Verbot mehr kommen", sagte der innenpolitische Sprecher der SPD-Fraktion, Dieter Wiefelspütz. Er selbst halte Paintball zwar nach wie vor für sittenwidrig, "aber meine persönlichen Wertvorstellungen sind nicht unbedingt Grund für ein Verbot", sagte er SPIEGEL ONLINE.

In short it says: For this period before the elections painball will not end. Basicaly they actually don't know IF the game is a form of danger at all!!!

Source: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschla ... 96,00.html

motorhead · Post by **motorhead** » 14 May 2009, 14:53

"Wir wissen noch zu wenig"

Bei der Union will man sich derzeit noch nicht so eindeutig äußern. Der Diskussionsprozess sei noch offen, sagte der CDU-Innenpolitiker Reinhard Grindel SPIEGEL ONLINE. Doch auch er hält eine Herabstufung des Verbots zu einem Prüfverfahren für wahrscheinlich. "Wir wissen momentan noch zu wenig darüber, wie gefährlich das Spiel wirklich ist", sagte Grindel.

In short: "We (the coalition) know too little about how dangerous this game is".

Yeah, rightly so.