Germany Wants to Ban Paintball

The German government intends to ban paintball as yet another reaction to the Winnenden school shooting in March.

The Social Democrat coalition government has agreed to outlaw "all games in which players shoot at each other with pellets," according to a report in the Telegraph, saying the act of shooting at other people even in a simulated environment "trivializes violence and risks lowering the threshold for committing violent acts." The government hopes to have the ban in place before September of this year; once enacted, the law could impose fines of up to $6800 .

The harsh measure is yet more fallout from the March 11 high school shooting at Winnenden in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, in which 15 students were murdered before the 17-year-old shooter killed himself. The shooting was linked to videogames through reports that the killer was a fan of Counter-Strike and Far Cry 2, and both police and government officials very quickly called for tougher regulation of gaming.

One wonders how far Germany will go to protect its youngsters from the "dangers" of violent gameplay. Paintball guns weren't even on the radar when I was a kid, so instead my friends and I ran around with rifle-shaped sticks making machine-gun noises at each other. Thousands of glorious battlefield deaths were inflicted and suffered in our imaginations; will German authorities someday try to bring that to a halt as well? Germany may still be a bit over-anxious about keeping a lid on some of its less-admirable national instincts - starting two world wars less than a half-century apart will have that effect - but how far can a government go in regulating fantasy before it topples over into outright paranoia?

via: Slashdot

(photo)

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Things like paintball and video games can be outlets for violent people. Taking away these from them could be a MISTAKE.

LoopyDood:
Things like paintball and video games are outlets for violent people. Taking away these from them could be a MISTAKE.

I agree, mostly. But for some people it might be better, a lot of people who want to kill someone could learn how in paintball. They would learn how to use a gun, I mean.

LoopyDood:
Things like paintball and video games are outlets for violent people. Taking away these from them could be a MISTAKE.

I would prefare a "can be" istead of a "are" ;)

Shine on you crazy German neo-socialists. With enough bubblewrap u may yet end all violent deaths

HuCast:

LoopyDood:
Things like paintball and video games are outlets for violent people. Taking away these from them could be a MISTAKE.

I would prefare a "can be" istead of a "are" ;)

Heh, I guess I'll go change that. :)

I'm sure I've read this before but meh.
Outlawing a game that can get rid of dreams of shooting people could possible result in more shootings =/ which is counter-productive.

And when this makes no difference what will they ban next? Free thought so people cant think of killing another person?
What happened Germany, you use to be cool

What a load of rubbish, its paintballing for god sakes, let the people have they fun, the way this world is going we will all be under control by a higher power soon.

Plus ive been paint balling and its a right blast, but hurts lol

Watch them all be fine, because its Germany. I mean, frankly folks, this is their Columbine, but they don't have the same size population the US does, and they're more into banning things. It makes sense, don't it? Frankly, we Americans are probably lucky that Popcap isn't the world's biggest development house and that we got to keep all our violent games even after every major news outlet ever decided that they were the cause.

Anyways, I'll bet Germany gets along nicely, because it's not the US and the crazies can't get their hands on guns quite as easily nor are they as inclined to. Plus it'd really stick in the craw of all you "boo-hoo-hoo! not paintbaaaall!" fellas. Heh.

Once again, I'm ashamed of my own country. So sad. =(

What do these so called "Protectors" plan to do about the evil violent video games?

What about Laser Tag or arcade games with light guns?

Come to think of it, have you ever noticed how all of these gun nuts were born on days ending in a Y?
That letter is evil!

Malygris:
"trivializes violence and risks lowering the threshold for committing violent acts."

These... people... they believe there is a reasonable, measurable threshold at which violence is acceptable...

They need to regulate the German government more heavily to avoid outright anarchy in the spirit of "an eye for an eye".

It seems to be lost on the Germans that despite having the tightest censorship of any european country, they're the one with the school massacre on their hands. Perhaps they should be looking at that and questioning their priorities.

Melancholy_Ocelot:

What about Laser Tag or arcade games with light guns?

From what I undrestand Laser tage sets will be covered by the same ban as paintball and airsoft guns, although I can't for the life of me remember where I read it (Saturday Telegraph I think).

isnt airsoft bigger than paintball in Europe? and if so is airsoft next?

Paintball is, in essence, a glorified game of "tag." Will they ban that next? What about contact sports?

Yeah its clearly paintballing thats the issue in Germany and not their gun ownership laws.

Obviously.

@Skizle - Excellent point as far as I know skirmish is the bigger deal.

Malygris:
Germany Wants to Ban Paintball
Germany may still be a bit over-anxious about keeping a lid on some of its less-admirable national instincts - starting two world wars less than a half-century apart will have that effect - but how far can a government go in regulating fantasy before it topples over into outright paranoia?

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Correction: Germany only started World War 2. They got scapegoated for World War 1 by the allies, even though pretty much all of Europe had a hand in starting that one.

Skizle:
isnt airsoft bigger than paintball in Europe? and if so is airsoft next?

Nope, it's actually smaller. Not many people know what airsoft is, but everyone knows paintball.

Skizle:
isnt airsoft bigger than paintball in Europe? and if so is airsoft next?

The ban is on "all games in which players shoot at each other with pellets", so both paintball and airsoft are included.

Dang. Poor Germans can't shoot their friends anymore.

Not non-lethally, anyway.

MA7743W:
Come to think of it, have you ever noticed how all of these gun nuts were born on days ending in a Y?
That letter is evil!

Not me! Ah was bern onna sunduh'!

Dalisclock:

Malygris:
Germany Wants to Ban Paintball
Germany may still be a bit over-anxious about keeping a lid on some of its less-admirable national instincts - starting two world wars less than a half-century apart will have that effect - but how far can a government go in regulating fantasy before it topples over into outright paranoia?

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Correction: Germany only started World War 2. They got scapegoated for World War 1 by the allies, even though pretty much all of Europe had a hand in starting that one.

I was thinking the same thing, the given reason for the start of WWI is the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by a Bosnian-Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip which caused a cascade effect as several treaties came into effect forcing the hand of many nations.

Also it is likely that if it wasn't for the overly harsh reparations forced upon Germany then WWII would never have happened, as the Nazi party’s policies for economic reform would not have been so popular and they would never have been elected, so it could be argued that the League of Nations were responsible for WWII.

But then again why let a little thing like facts get in the way of a good tag line especially considering Germans are evil.

Wow, I used to be really into paintball, I can really sympathize with the people going to be affected by this. Seriously, are they going to ban nerf too? what about dodge ball? Are they making these rules based on their "intuition" or hard scientific facts? Because for something that affects millions of people, I don't really give a shit about some shrivelled politician's "intuition"

I personally think that the best thing would be to have regulated violence is schools. It would make potential victims of bullying able to defend themselves, and teach bullies and potentially violent people that violence is something which the person your fighting should agree too. As it stands, people who have a deep seated desire to be violent can only use video games for that, and end up degenerating in front of a computer because of it. If schools taught people to fight each other with fists, and not make physical violence so out of bounds, maybe people would just have a nice no one gets killed fist fight instead of bringing a gun to school.

Ahh yes, cuase all Germans are perfect in every way. And having gun crimes must be linked to violent video games, and not linked at all to Germanys' nationalist past. Cause for all we know, germany could start WW3 (some may think I am being completaly racist, but I am joking at heart.)But yer Seriously, Nazi Germany was started on revenge for there loss of WW1. how do we know that the German government is telling the whole truth and that all of these crimes are infacct some how linked to the dissapointment that Germany has felt, twice, within the past century. (if any Germans are reading this, I am currentaly studying Nazi germany so please think about what you are saying before you rant on about what I have just said.)

I guess I wont be playing paintball in Germany then.. oh well.

This just in: Germany outlaws all fun activities for young people
They do seem to take the violence issue way too seriously, with their already very negative view on gaming in general, and this seems to be going a bit too far. Is Laser Quest, or the equivalent banned there too yet? Seems the next likely victim if not.

johnman:
And when this makes no difference what will they ban next? Free thought so people cant think of killing another person?
What happened Germany, you use to be cool

Germany was never cool.

galletea:
This just in: Germany outlaws all fun activities for young people
They do seem to take the violence issue way too seriously, with their already very negative view on gaming in general, and this seems to be going a bit too far. Is Laser Quest, or the equivalent banned there too yet? Seems the next likely victim if not.

Ironic considering a German gamer flew to England so that he could murder the boyfriend of a girl gamer he stalked online.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8043887.stm

Seems the Germans take a lot of things too seriously.

Violent people will be violent, taking away paintball won't discourage lunatics from going on armed rampages. Not making armed psychos into 24-hour news stories will have a greater effect in discouraging future incidents - the more publicity they get the more some other alienated loser might thing "hey, there's a way to get famous".

As soon as I read the bolded text, I said, "Oh fuck this, I'm just going to say bullocks to that." How do you relate paintball to a school shooting and oh, hoo-bloody-ray, videogame violence makes another appearence as a reason for school shootings. UHG! I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!

What I am concerned about, is if there are no more school shootings in Germany (which won't be because paintball and all other shooting related sports are banned), then the other EU countries might decide Germany is on the right path and follow suit. Which will only be stupid piled on more stupid, since it will only kill their economy and society even more.
Seriously, are they just taking the lazy approach and not taking measures to help these troubled children who get so desparate for attention and lose their meaning in life they have to take this approach?
I remember when I first used Basic Programming on my Commodore 64, and whenever I would get an error in line xx, I would just delete that line. (I was 9 or 10 at the time, ya go ahead and make the old age jokes!) That didn't help the program run any better, and most times killed it altogether. This philosophy the German government is following is the same approach. Why take the effort to examine the problem when we can just delete the troublesome error?