Oh I just read one of the articles here about “what is an airsoft gun” and it wasn’t completely accurate.
It said, “As paintball gun games gained popularity in the 1990s, more people asked for realistic-looking weapons to use, Hunnicutt said.”
That isn’t really true. Paintball worked hard from the late 80s to 2000s+ to distance itself from being a “war game”. This resulted in players shooting guns that were anodized all sorts of colors and wearing motorcross style jerseys and eventually playing not in the woods but on field with giant balloons as obstacles. This was called speed ball as the games were fast paced and how the tournaments were run.
Now there was always a segment that preferred playing in the woods in camouflage, aka woods ball. But back then even though the guns might have been black, they didn’t really look like real guns. Even in the mid 2000s when the more mil-sim look caught on, the big honking hopper full of paintballs on top of the gun gave it away that it wasn’t real.
Now airsoft has been around about as long as paintball. In fact the first major paintball magazine, Action Pursuit Games, included airsoft for its first issue or two before switching exclusively to paintball. Airsoft had been more popular in places like Japan where people couldn’t own guns. It took a lot longer for it to catch on here partially because of its realism and war-game feel. I think paintball made the idea of shooting at people as a game acceptable, and then people who wanted a more realistic experience gravitated to airsoft.
Back when I played though there was not a lot of cross over between players. I know paintball players sort of looked down on airsofters as being sort of wannabes who cheated a lot (airsoft uses plastic BBs that don’t leave a paint mark, though they do make paint pellets for them). We saw paintball as more of a sport.
But boy do some of those guys go all out. I mean they spend thousands on their kit to get the exact same gear one would find on special forces in Iraq. Their guns are made of metal and operate nearly the same as the real gun. Many of the accessories are actually interchangeable, leading to a lot of black market knock offs of things like piccatinny rail systems and stocks. Japan still makes some of the most sought after guns.
They have always had BB guns that looked like real guns. I have a really crappy Crossman that looks, more or less, like a 1911. But I was never left unsupervised with a BB gun. I think parents see airsoft as a toy - and it is less dangerous to shoot plastic BBs than metal ones from a real BB gun. But I really think they need to be used with supervision, and given the public’s general irrational fear of guns, they are naturally going to flip out and assume it is real and call it in, vs think, oh its a kid with an airsoft gun.
Again I am not saying this particular shooting was justified or not. Just wanted to give some info on the history of things.
