Cret Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 You should perhaps pass your comments to the illustrious AF Downie [chim chiminee] He has a enormous gun collection and never shoots anything with them. Owning real or antique guns and playing guns is two different issues I think. Playing with toy guns (pretending to kill people) is much more freaky and weird than legally owning but never using real guns IMO. It's seriously 'ked up behaviour. I'd be at a loss to see it any other way. And lets face it - nobody goes out and pretends to kill pheasants or pigeons. Where as - a few fucked up adults do actually spend their free time pretending to kill people in the woods - in the name of paintball or soft air pursuits. One can argue it any which way - but paintaball and soft air gun games of tag - are basically about maladjusted males playing out shooting people fantasies. I don't particularly have a problem with children owning toy guns. Toys are for children. It's adults with toy guns what bothers me. Simply staggering. You think firing plastic pellets at your mates is living out desires of killing people then saying that clay pigeon shooting isn't pretending to shoot pigeons or pheasants? Why not? The two amount to the same thing. From your point of view they are the same thing even though for some reason you can't see that. To normal well adjusted people though they're enjoyable competitive sport. For fucks sake man, paintballers have even spent years now gradually changing the image of their sport to achieve a more 'friendly' appearance by going out wearing ridiculous dayglow outfits and playing in open fields with inflatable obstacles to try and convince brainless cocks like you that they're not all wannabe murderers and you STILL think that. You're the one that is seriously disturbed mate. Get a life instead of trying to mess up everyone else's because of your dimwitted primary school attitude. As an afterthought - do you think the same thing of grown ups who play video games that involve having to 'kill people'? That's the same thing again except if anything there's more fuel to that argument as they graphically portray the blood & gore factor. If so then you're accusing a big proportion of the human race of all wanting to slay their fellow citizens, and that makes you nigh on certifiable. If not then it simply proves that your argument is completely contradictory (like you're "But it's ok for kids" comment) and not worth the virtual ink it's written in. Makes you sound like a foolish loon whichever way you look at it really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cret Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 You sir, appear to be a complete cock. Stop sitting on the fence dude and tell the bloke what you REALLY think of him Sorry dude but I've come across this kind of mental attitude before and it scares and offends me just how poorly thought out (if at all) & beyond childish it really is. I've had over a dozen years of doing skirmishing and met loads of ace people, had some of the best fun ever during that time and even though I don't really do it any more it sickens me that there are still people with such twisted views on the subject. It's freakish to say the least. I hope I'm not the only one that finds his 'tar everyone with the same brush' comments distinctly unpleasant & worrying? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FCMR Posted February 17, 2006 Author Share Posted February 17, 2006 Sorry Cret they done the crime so should do the time. allowing them to get away with it sets the rules or should i say sets the family rules Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cret Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 No need to apologise at all mate - I agree with you 100%. Anyone waving the things around or taking them into school or suchlike in this day & age should know better and deserves some form of punishment. Surely you don't agree with that crap about anyone who uses them sensibly is a closet mentalist psycho though? I can only spot one mentalist on this thread..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 No reasonably well adjusted adult plays killing. Any that do are weird and potentially dangerous. Or, at least, just rather juvenile. You make some interesting points. I find firearms horribly unsettling, and wouldn't want any part in mucking about with (even mock ones) guns. Even as a kid really. Don't even like shoot-em-up computer games. Yes it is a rather strange thing for people to get pleasure from and the people who do it might be a bit peculiar. But I think the attraction is more juvenile rather than anything more sinster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cret Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 I find firearms horribly unsettling Much as I enjoy firing guns (both real ones at targets, and 'toy ones' for skirmishing) I find the idea of firearms being used to shoot innocent people horribly unsettling also. Yes it is a rather strange thing for people to get pleasure from and the people who do it might be a bit peculiar. But I think the attraction is more juvenile rather than anything more sinster. The thing most people don't seem to get (and perhaps why they think people who enjoy these things are a peculiar breed) is that the replicas we use are a means to an end of the form of sport/hobby that we enjoy. It's all about trying to outwit & outmaneuver your opponents and second guess them etc. Almost like a live game of command & conquer. Now that's hardly a bloody game where computer games go & is all about strategy and how you need to approach things in order to win. It's not remotely about pretending to kill people or any such paranoid guff, but is a competitive game where you basically have to outthink & out plot the 'enemy' or opponent. Aside from the physical things you use to participate it's pretty much even the same idea as a game of chess except you get to run around a bit, and to be honest, yes, be a bit juvenile with a certain element of hide & seek, 'tip' and other such traditional games. There isn't anything sinister about it remotely. I don't understand why people enjoy going to play bingo as it's not my cup of tea but I wouldn't say the people who do so are peculiar. Just different. One of the most offensive and despicable statements I've read for a long time is simple Simon's comment: I'm suggesting that any adult who fancies guns for anything other than shooting the hunt is basically some part of the same idea which ends up with a WPC being shot in Nottingham because someone thought that a gun was a neat object. Which implies it's fine to use a gun to go out in a group and shoot an animal for a bit of fun, but use one to fire at a paper target, play laserquest, shoot a clay pigeon, play paintball or what have you, and you're automatically branded the kind of person that would shoot a police officer. I just can't fathom what kind of utter lunacy can reach such a deduction. There's no logic to it, there hasn't been any kind of sensible explanation as to why this should be the case, and from my experience is certainly not the case. He's basically saying that someone who does any of these things is a criminal/murderer in the making and comments like that not only make me livid (in case anyone was in any doubt ) but also in despair of what kind of dismal IQ could arrive at such conclusions. It's worrying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 Hey, don't get so het up, everybody is peculiar in their own way! Be a boring world if we weren't. Oh and I meant I found firearms in general (including paintball, laser quest etc) unsettling, not just shooting at people. And it was a statement of fact not an opinion. I hate being around stuff like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simon Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 Maybe there should be a wider debate about games which involve adults pretending to kill people with guns - and whether that's actually in particularly good taste. For example - are some gaming scenarios in better taste than others? How about cops and robbers? What about cops and terrorists? You clearly have strong feelings about this Cret. But if these games aren't about playing at killing people then why not lay down your arms? Call for a toy gun ceasefire. EDIT: In suggesting that adults who play with toy guns are potentially dangerous .... well I'm thinking in terms of a failure to empathise or to think properly about what it actually means to even pretend to point a gun at someone. (For example - when you pretend to shoot someone - well do you also pretend to go through a process of dealing mentally with having shot someone. That's part of what I mean about empathising.) But I accept that perhaps not all adults who play with toy guns are potentially dangerous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cret Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 Maybe there should be a wider debate about games which involve adults pretending to kill people with guns - and whether that's actually in particularly good taste. For example - are some gaming scenarios in better taste than others? How about cops and robbers? What about cops and terrorists? You clearly have strong feelings about this Cret. But if these games aren't about playing at killing people then why not lay down your arms? Call for a toy gun ceasefire. EDIT: In suggesting that adults who play with toy guns are potentially dangerous .... well I'm thinking in terms of a failure to empathise or to think properly about what it actually means to even pretend to point a gun at someone. (For example - when you pretend to shoot someone - well do you also pretend to go through a process of dealing mentally with having shot someone. That's part of what I mean about empathising.) But I accept that perhaps not all adults who play with toy guns are potentially dangerous. That's actually a half reasonable reply Simon although for the life of me I can't imagine you're serious when you suggest 'laying down my arms and calling a toy gun ceasefire'. That would naturally mean I've spent hundreds of pounds on good equipment for nothing and the game would not exist. Plus if you now have changed your mind & accept that not all (it's a start I suppose) people who enjoy these things are crazy gun nuts, why would you then still want us to stop doing it? Again, it's contradictory. I appreciate that you have toned down your comments a bit, and yes I do have strong feelings about it because even though it's not something I still regularly do it's given me some awesome fun over the years, some very funny stories to compare with my mates and has made me many new friends. How can anything like that be bad? Scenario wise one of the most common ones we do is simply capture a flag from the opposition. There's no suggestion that you have to 'kill' the enemy to do this, indeed the way we have always played is that people are not 'killed' at all (and out of the game for good) but more that they have to freeze for a time period (typically one or two minutes) to impede their progress before they may recontinue. If any of us were realy pretending to kill each other this would probably somewhat ruin the idea I imagine, as once you're dead you're dead surely? Of course we don't do the empathy process because we're not really pretending to blow holes through someone else's body and we're well aware of that. It's a game, we know it's a game, and as well balanced adults we know it's not going to make us go around thinking it's fine to fire guns at people. I can appreciate that if someone was a loony psycho to begin with then doing this kind of thing might not help, but that has nothing to do with the game - it's down to a fault with the individual and then neither would chopping up steaks in their kitchen, chainsawing through a log, hitting something with a hammer, or playing violent video games etc. No difference. Thankyou for at least taking on board some of what I have said even if you are still not entirely convinced that I'm not crazy. Declan - sorry - wasn't meaning to sound like I was having a pop at you or anything. I don't have an issue with people thinking it's peculiar as such as that's more bemusing to us than derogatory. Opinionate away! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tugger Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 I don't do any of this paintballing or similar malarkey but I can't see any similarity between that sort of game (when everyone essentially knows it's just for a laugh) and either terrorising someone with a replica gun (when they are not aware of this fact) or shooting some unsuspecting victim who isn't a willing participant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simon Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 Plus if you now have changed your mind & accept that not all (it's a start I suppose) people who enjoy these things are crazy gun nuts, why would you then still want us to stop doing it? Again, it's contradictory. The point would be that although I accept that they aren't necessarily all nutters - well I still don't think that it's in anything like good taste. As I said - I think that it's worth wondering whether pretending to shoot people is appropriate adult behaviour. But if it really isn't about shooting people then why not play it without pretend guns? I'm willing to bet that the majority of 'players' get a buzz out of pulling the trigger and would consider the shooting - at - people element to be essential. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cret Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 The point would be that although I accept that they aren't necessarily all nutters - well I still don't think that it's in anything like good taste. As I've done my level best to answer your questions & allay your paranoi, perhaps you could afford me the courtesy of answering the questions I have put to you? As I've already asked then do you extend the same rationale to video games, laserquest, paintball, water pistol fight between a parent & their child etc etc etc. All of these things that millions of happy families all over the world play and find harmless enough and all of which involve 'shooting at people'. You can't have it both ways Simon - either there's an enormous worldwide fetish with pretending to kill other people with parents & kids playing along with (no doubt unbenownst to them they are all just nutters in the making), or you're extrermely paranoid about an issue which really does not exist. I can understand not everyone would enjoy or appreciate these kind of games - that's fine. I can appreciate also that when people don't understand something it sometimes causes them to worry through their ignorance of it - that's fine too. But when someone tries to accuse an enormous section of the worl'ds population of largely being nutters it frankly makes me wonder who the nutters are - the millions of people enjoy harmless fun, or the odd person here and there who has decided (without once providing any explanation why so far) they're mostly sickos. I know who my money is on.... Obviously we will have to agree to disagree on this issue but I'm still quite offended by your blinkered and unexplained position, which is continually compounded by your refusal to read or heed any of the several comments I've made stating very clearly that THIS. IS. NOT. ABOUT. PRETENDING. TO. KILL. PEOPLE. I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it. If it please you to think there's a big conspiracy of gun/water pistol/laser gun/virtual gun toting maniacs out there then crack on but between someone with that idea and someone who enjoys fresh air, exercise, and a bit of a laugh with their mates I know who seems more 'normal' to me. But if it really isn't about shooting people then why not play it without pretend guns? Please explain how exactly a game which involves tagging other people from a distance would be done without our 'toy guns' in whatever form they take? Perhaps the manufacturers should make them look like bananas instead maybe? What about boxing for instance too? A sport which involves trying your absolute hardest and training for months to beat seven bells and really cause physical damage to another human - for real, not pretend - to be far more worrying? I don't, and whilst I realise there are some that do, they're in the minority and as such would generally be seen to be the ones with the issue. Just food for thought. I'm happy to discuss why you seem to have this misconception but I'm struggling to understand it especially as you seem to keep contradicting yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mollag Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 Given the strong feelings expressed about bb and paintball and the opinions shown of the participants, i wonder how people would feel about those who support and participate in hurtling around the Island at over 200mph on large motorbikes?, Many people die as a result each year but to my best recollection no deaths yet to paintball or bb and both pastimes arent really necessary. I participate in neither but i reckon one mans pastime is his affair, judge not lest you yadd-yadda-yadda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haX0red_Account Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 i agree- cret seems like a great example to anyone involved in the sports mentioned- releasing aggression in a controlled manner isn't harmful- look at wild animals; rough and forceful 'play' are important aspects of their socialising process Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacqueline Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 look at wild animals; rough and forceful 'play' are important aspects of their socialising process So is picking fleas out of each others' arseholes but you don't see much of that going on down Strand Street either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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