Airsoft Howitzer.

[Ian_Gere]

I get you, but in my experience the "kid" argument is what people resort to when they realise that if the discussion goes much further they'll be left without a leg to stand on. In rhetoric it's called "argument to emotion" and is considered an automatic fail. You know, like the truth is that somebody doesn't like the idea of anything to do with guns but they know that many people either do or don't care either way, so they go with the safety argument to say airsoft should be banned. So the counter argument goes 'mandatory eyepro; muzzle energy limits'... [cue whining nasal voice] but what about the kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiids? In rebuttal you may think, "you illogical, namby-pandy peddling, bollockless bastard!", but because many people are swayed more by emotion than logic, we have to go with 'no pyros and mandatory full face protection for u18's'.

 

The truth of the matter however is that if being shot at with a particular projectile is dangerous for kids, it's dangerous for adults. The risk is exactly the same. The difference is that an adult can choose to take that risk for themselves and sign the liability waiver, but it is up to a kid's legal guardian to assess the risk and either sign or refuse on the kid's behalf. The logical implication of saying that something which has a degree of risk involved is ok for adults but must have greater mandatory protection for kids, or that kids cannot be allowed to do it purely on safety grounds, is that adults cannot be trusted to make decisions about the safety of the kids for whom they are the legal guardians - a situation which would require a total re-evaluation of the way British Law works...

[remus]

next week on airsoft forums.co.uk, how to make an airsoft taser....(not for actually airsofting with but for use when people try to ruin airsoft;) so thanks to logic of law nerf propelled by water is as far as we can currently realisticly take this?

[Ian_Gere]

I dunno remus. I think there may be something worth looking into in this definition of a weapon that fires a projectile that explodes on impact. If that is the letter of the law, then if it's a timed fuse then it may be ok. But then again it may be impossible under the muzzle energy regs, because it wouldn't take much projectile weight for the muzzle velocity to have to be so low it would be pointless. I think it depends again on the letter of the law, because there may be a usable legal difference between something the law defines as a firearm and something which is merely a passive launcher. I say this because any of those water rocket type thingies are actually propelled by compressed air. Water doesn't compress, it just slows down the escape of the air compressed behind it in the container so it doesn't pop out all in one go. I mean, what do they do on Scrapheap Challenge? Get a licence to manufacture firearms? Somehow I just don't think so... Even the episodes where they built actual real steel canons; i'll bet that just one armourer person had the necessary licence and everybody else was considered legally under their supervision.