Sunday, May 14, 2006

 

Paintball: Harmless Fun or Teaching to Kill

About a year and a half ago, my son was invited to play paintball with a friend's church group. He immediately fell in love with the game. Yesterday I took him to a paintball center near Cincinnati. Last year I had taken him there several times to play.

The center is well run with plenty of referees and other staff. Any equipment you need is available for purchase or rent. But as I set watching the paintball battles an ominous thought over came me. Is this harmless fun or are we teaching kids to shoot and kill others? How far does the Testosterone level of the participants rise during the game and the handling of the weapons?

My son's "marker" is capable of shooting up to 30 rounds a second. That's firepower. While a compressed gas powers the paintball guns, usually CO2 (greenhouse gas!!), they are not silent. The staccato popping of the paintball guns brings a realistic feeling to the battles. The kids learn marksmanship, battle tactics, group strategies and to shoot their opponents.

There is also an almost complete absence of females. Yesterday the only females were an occasional mother dropping off or picking up her son. A couple of times I've seen teenage girls play but they didn't seem to enjoy it. Perhaps they don't have enough testosterone.

Can this be good?

May be we should have these guys perform a study on this.

Hat tip to DrHelen.

Comments:
I've never played paintball but I've played Lasertag a couple of times and I thought it was fun.
 
My son loves paintball. As far as I can tell it is a good, wholesome activity.
 
paintballsean1 - I hope you and everyone else realizes I'm being satirical. Paintball is a great game. I wish my son could play it more. He was invited to join a team last weekend so this may be the beginning of something big. Best wishes to you in your paintballing.
 
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