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German Gov To Ban Paintballing After Shooting
whoever57 writes "In response to the school shooting in March in which 16 people were killed, the German Government
plans to ban all games in which players shoot at each other with pellets. The rationale for this is that 'paintball trivializes violence and risks lowering the threshold for committing violent acts.' Fines could be up to 5,000 euros."
Come on Germany, you used to be cool.
This shows the gun registration laws work! If only we made it illegal to shoot people in the first place, all our problems would be solved. Oh wait...
But I will say I find this entirely in keeping with the policy of the German government. They have similarly ridiculous laws in place regarding video games and other entertainment, so while this new one seems utterly idiotic, it is at least a logical extension of what they've already done.
At this rate, they'll be banning soccer next. Wouldn't want those hooligans "lowering the threshold for violent acts", now, would we?
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
This is sure to succeed, just like banning the swastika has completely removed any trace of right-wing hate groups in Germany.
Does the German government actually think that people learn violence from games? Violence is part of human instinct. We have evolved so that we have a tendency to hurt other people. No amount of censorship is going to fix that.
When I was 15 or so, I wanted to play paintball. My parents were initially resistant to the idea. They thought it was militant and would be a poor influence on me. I learned quickly that it's damned well easy to get shot and the welts those things leave don't let the memory fade. Rather than thinking, "Hey self, let's go join the army and shoot people for real," I thought "If those were real bullets, I'd be dead inside of 5 minutes along with all of my friends."
So, yes, I did learn a thing or two about taking down mansized targets with horribly inaccurate, slow moving projectiles with no ability to penetrate cover. What I also learned was that I am not invincible, I play by the same rules as everyone else, and I want to be nowhere near real bullets fired in anger.
Each time I hear about some retard in office limiting the People's freedom, my treshhold for committing violent acts upon said retard is significantly lowered.
Obviously we should ban such retards from office.
Psssst! Hey man, want some splat? I'll get you freaky painted.
2 EUR a ball, 20 for a baker's dozen.
Just don't share a dirty gun with your friends.
What problem? That people kill each other? That's going to be the case no matter what.
According to the article, the last time they tightened gun laws in Germany was in 2002 in response to a guy killing 16 people. So... that's what, 31 people in 7 years? About 4.5 a year? Statistically, you're more likely to win the lottery than be shot by a crazed gunman. Or be struck by lightning. Hell, you take a bigger risk just crossing the street.
This isn't about safety. No, these politicians know exactly what they're doing. They LOVE stuff like this happening. It just gives them one more way to subjugate the public. But you'd think the Germans of all people would understand the risks of having an overly powerful government and a largely unarmed populace.
Years later, I amused myself with computer games, including a fair number of first-person shooters. Spent many an enjoyable hour playing Descent and Quake 3. Descent with the PC hooked up to my stereo was awesome -- those fireballs on the screen looked pretty damn good, and, by God, the booming from the speakers was way cool.
I'm 44 now and haven't killed anyone yet, but who knows, eh, what kind of violent rage was set into motion by all that mock fighting, only waiting to turn me into a murderous monster like that kid in Winnenden, Germany? OMG, I'm a ticking time bomb!
*shakes head in disbelief*
What is the root of the problem? I know it's not video games, music, or any other activity or media that they could honestly care to ban. As far as I can tell it's just that a certain small portion of the population aren't mentally stable and would actually bring a gun to a school, church, etc. and start unloading on people.
There's no real way to prevent it from happening short of a big brother government with the observational powers mentioned in 1984. Short of that, we just aren't able to tell who's just a little strange and who's going to blast his classmates. People will always like to say that they thought little Billy was a little off, but they've probably thought that about hundreds of other people who didn't go postal.
I'm sure we can identify some risk factors, but there's no way we can possible identify some root cause until we have a much better understanding of the human brain. There're plenty of mentally unbalanced people who don't go around shooting up the neighborhood. Until they actually do go over the edge, are we supposed to lock them up based on the assumption that they'll do something horrible? If that's the case we might as well lock up every woman based on the assumption that she's more than capable of engaging in acts of prostitution and selling her body.
As far as I'm concerned the only possible solution is to keep these people from acquiring the weapons that allow them to inflict high numbers of casualties or to allow people carry sufficient protection to put one of these people down when they snap. Neither of these are particularly easy solutions (or even good) in my opinion. Perhaps someone else has a better solution of eliminating some root cause that I'm just not seeing or solving the problem in some way that's not a complete pain in the ass.
Instead of (correctly) complaining that "correlation != causation" or "this won't work!!", could we use examples like these to promote science education?
Will banning paintball cause a decrease in school shootings? Did you know that's a scientifically tractable question?
When a tragedy like this occurs, the public demands a political reaction. More education on the only known way to get at causation - the scientific method - might cause people to demand political reactions that work.
31 people in 7 years? That's nothing. Germany has something like 1 intentional homicide per 100,000 people (about 1/4 of the USA murder rate, which is about half of the Zimbabwean murder rate ... not that the US needs gun control).
Germany has 82 million people, so that's 820 homicides per year. I am guessing that the biggest offenders will be husbands, and the next biggest offenders will be wives.
I say they should ban marriage - it's obviously a far bigger cause of violence than paintball games.
As much as I hate to see paintball and airsoft banned... I don't see how this is the government subjagating its population. More like being a stupid hysterical parent (of which I have seen dozens in response to paintball over the years).
Just because this isn't effective, doesn't mean it isn't well intentioned. I'm sure the reason they're doing this is out of fear and outrage not some nefarious plot to supress the paintball revolution that was slowly fermenting in their borders.
Stupid? Yes. Ignorant? Yes. Useless? Yes. Evil plot by the government? Not likely. The government is run by people just like you and me. Most normal people think paintball is a strange and violent game played by a bunch of sociopaths. Normal people also think the world is 7,000 years old. Think they're more likely to get their identiy stolen by buying something on amazon than by their brother in law. Think only children play video games. Think photoshop only runs on a mac.... etc etc etc...
And who can really blame them in this instance. When else would you think it's normal for two people to be eating lunch and excitedly recounting how "He totally didn't see me coming. He was just sitting there and I snuck up behind him and shot him in the head. SPLAT!"
Here's how it usually goes down with these situations, aside from the case where the person isn't a sociopath:
1) Guy gets marginalized and picked on.
2) School knows about it and does nothing.
3) Guy gets subjected to violence.
4) The authorities do nothing despite the basic fact that we know from common sense and scientific observation that eventually an organism will lash out in self-defense if not protected.
5) Guy may defend himself, at which rate the authorities will come down hard on him because as we all know "violence never solves anything."
6) The authorities will earnestly pat themselves on the back as guardians of civilization for having stopped a victim from exercising force in self-defense.
7) Guy lashes out with disproportionate force because pent up frustration made his temper 5x more explosive it would have been if causality had been allowed to run its course between the attackers and the victim.
8) The authorities will claim it couldn't have been stopped.
Violence solves things splendidly with bullies. In the early 1960s, victims of bullying were allowed to beat the shit out of the bully, and the authorities didn't even think about taking up for the bully unless it was so extreme as to be a violent crime.
You want less violent shootings? Let teenage boys shoot guns (real guns), play video games and beat the shit out of each other when one attacks the other. When violence usually brings more violence back on the perpetrator, people usually are less inclined to use violence. Violent people who are quick to use force are not wired like normal people, and the best way to restrain them is to create a culture that will respond to them violently when they act out.
Read up about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and then tell me fighting a losing battle never does any good. A few poorly armed Jews managed to hold off the the Wehrmacht for nearly a month. Sure, they lost in the end. But would it have been so easy for the Nazis to round up their victims if they faced such a battle every time they had tried?
Remember that between 11 and 17 million people were killed in the Holocaust. Do you really believe that if every one of these people had a gun and used it against their oppressors, there would have been nearly as many murdered as there were? Look at the bigger picture.
When people in our society believe they can't as individuals, make a difference, it's bad for all of us. "Powerless" people become apathetic and toss in the towel, which means others have to carry them on their backs, or they become hostile and try to tear down a system they can't understand and don't believe they can control. This attitude pervades our world. Some of its symptoms are declining productivity and senseless violence.
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was one of those who became hostile. She attempted to gun down President Gerald Ford. After her arrest, she explained, "When people around you treat you like a child and pay no attention to the things you say, you have to do something!"
The "something" Squeaky did was psychopathic and self-destructive. Her self-perception was miles off base. She didn't realize that she had other alternatives that were socially acceptable and legal. She didn't realize that a criminal act, regardless of its goal, is almost always an abuse of power.
I think it is a problem in society of people not seeing things clearly. It is the same problem that we have with poverty: people living in the slums could pick themselves up, get an education, get out and greatly improve their lives, but it is hard for them to see the path to accomplishing that. Sometimes it is hard for them to believe they are even capable of it, so they stay stuck where they are. The two are often related: people killing each other because they don't understand how the world is, and people remaining in poverty because they don't understand how the world is.
Life sucks, but you can change things. We need to get that message out to people. It will be a lot more effective than banning guns.
Qxe4
Exclude drug-related murders from both Germany and the US. The remaining violence statistics are on par.
The "War on (some) Drugs" is the most common proximal cause of murder in the US. Firearms are just the most popular tool for accomplishing a bit of drug fueled violence.
If the rebels in the Warsaw Ghetto accomplished nothing simply because they lost, then neither did the Third Reich.
Perhaps you will have the foresight and good fortune to flee a tyrannical government when you finally recognize your own to be one. Maybe to you the possibility of fighting back seems hopeless, and compliance--or even collaboration--is the only answer. I, for one, will not be rounded up so easily. I wish I could say the same for the rest of my countrymen, for my own sake if nothing else. But sadly many of them, like yourself, have forgotten or are willfully ignorant of the lessons of history. Against a single criminal or a tyrannical war machine, a gun can be the great equalizer.
And for the record, the Nazis outnumbered the resistance fighters by a ratio of between 2:1 and 7:1. And the Nazis had tanks and an effectively unlimited supply of weapons at their disposal. You dishonor the fighters by trivializing their accomplishments.