Airsoft guns pack a wallop
Date: Jul 12, 2008 11:58 AM
PUBLICATION: Montreal Gazette
DATE: 2008.07.12
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Saturday Extra
PAGE: B3
ILLUSTRATION: Colour Photo: FRANCIS VACHON, THE GAZETTE / PLAYING IT SAFE.Kids from
11 to 15 years old meet regularly for airsoft battles at the Maison des jeunes in
St. Ferr?ol les Neiges. From left: William Guilbault uses Alexis Herrmann as a human
shield, Sony Gravel-Paquet recoils from a pellet fired by Emmanuel Talbot-Lanciault,
as Maxime Labrecque walks by, Alexis Herrmann tries to dodge a shot from Elodie
Talbot-Lanciault’s airsoft. ; Colour Photo: FRANCIS VACHON, THE GAZETTE / Samuel
Racine-Defoy (left) and Alexandre Couture take up their positions behind bins during
an airsoft gun battle in St. Ferr?ol les Neiges. ;
DATELINE: ST. FERREOL LES NEIGES
BYLINE: MARK CARDWELL
SOURCE: Freelance
WORD COUNT: 1721

——————————————————————————–

Airsoft guns pack a wallop

——————————————————————————–

As misnomers go, airsoft is a whopper. I should know. I was shot recently from close
range with one of the large plastic BBs fired by one of the imported air guns, which
are the latest backyard sensation among kids in many Canadian communities like this
one.

Even through blue jeans, the 6-mm BB, which is roughly twice the size of a standard
metal BB and half as big as a paintball projectile inflicted a sting similar to
an elastic band being snapped hard against bare skin.

In other words, it hurt like hell. And it gave me an immediate appreciation for
the potential danger of these unregulated weapons in the hands of thrill-seeking
youngsters with little or no understanding of basic gun safety.

While there are no hard numbers about the prevalence or severity of injuries caused
by airsoft guns in Canada, the director of the trauma programs at Montreal’s
Children’s Hospital says they are starting to become a cause for concern in
Quebec. “So far we’ve been lucky in that we haven’t seen the numbers
and kinds of severe injuries we see that are caused by BBs and paintballs,”
said Debbie Friedman. “But we’re beginning to see more and more cases.”

According to Friedman, the Children’s has only treated about a half-dozen airsoft
injuries annually over the past few years. Thankfully, she added, those injuries
have all involved welts to limbs and necks.

“Our greatest fear is that we’re going to start getting kids in here with
life-altering injuries to their eyes,” she said. “It just takes a split
second to happen.”

And when it comes to playing with airsoft guns, pain and danger are the name of
the game.

“Sure it hurts when you get shot,” says my oldest son, William, 12, who
owns three airsoft guns. “But trying not to get shot – and shooting other people
- is what makes it so much fun.”

Like the dozen or so 11- to 15-year olds who get together regularly after supper
to wage simulated warfare around the Maison des jeunes in the centre of our village,
he’d never even heard of an airsoft gun until a few weeks ago.

Neither had I, despite the fact that I’m a gun owner who grew up using compressed-air
weapons like pellet and BB guns.

Then, like now, the golden rule of responsible gun handling was to never aim or
fire a gun – any gun – at another person.

But the very nature of airsoft tag – and how the guns are marketed, particularly
to kids – runs counter to that principle.

Originally produced as toys in Japan, where individual ownership of real guns is
illegal, in the 1970s with a name – Air Soft – that differentiated their larger
(and therefore slower) plastic ammunition from the smaller, faster copper and steel
shot fired by standard BB guns, the clear plastic-barreled pistols and rifles are
so real looking they are widely used as a non-lethal, live-fire training tool for
police and military forces in the United States.

Still popular in Japan, where the number of “airsoft hobbyists” is believed
to be in the hundreds of thousands, the guns are also becoming increasingly popular
among many American sport shooting and close-combat enthusiasts. “The whole
idea and beauty of airsoft,” reads the website of one Kentucky-based weapons
retailer who sells the guns, “is the fact that it is relatively safe and useable
(indoors) where conventional BB guns or paintball guns cannot be used.”

Unlike paintball, which has been popular across North America for two decades, airsoft
guns started showing up in Canada just a few years ago, first in small sporting
goods stores and, now, on the shelves of the country’s biggest retailers, including
Wal-Mart.

Because airsoft bullets fire at a velocity of less than 152 metres per second, they
are not regulated by federal gun-control laws in Canada.

While some provinces and municipalities have laws regulating such non-powder firearms
(Ontario, for example, requires a minimum age of 18 to buy the ammunition for air
guns and BB guns, while Halifax forbids their firing within municipal limits), there
are no restrictions on their sale or use in Quebec.

Airsoft manufacturers, however, most of them located in the U.S., caution retailers
against selling the weapons to minors.

Most models also come with safety glasses – the only protective gear that the manufacturers
“strongly recommended” users wear.

Steve Desch?nes, owner of Passion Chasse & P?che, a store in the Quebec City
suburb of Beauport that caters to hunters and anglers – and the only one of the
half-dozen hunting shops in the region to carry airsoft guns – says most of his
airsoft sales have been to boys age 14 to 18, who come into the store with fathers
who are there to look at firearms.

Desch?nes said he and his staff try to adhere to a policy of refusing to sell the
guns to kids under 16 who aren’t accompanied by their parents, “but it’s
not always easy. It comes down to using your common sense.”

He has enjoyed brisk sales of the weapons since he began stocking Crossman products
for the first time in March. “I’m happy with how they’re selling,”
he said, noting that sales of airsoft guns at his store now rival pellet gun sales.
“It’s really good when you consider that I’ve never even advertised
that I carry them.”

According to Roy Stefanko, U.S. national sales manager for Crossman, which controls
as much as 80 per cent of the air-gun market in North America, the guns are intended
for shooting targets, not other people. “I’ve heard anecdotally that (airsoft
guns) are being used to play (war simulation games),” he said this week. “But
that’s not what they are intended for. They’re intended for practising shooting
in a safe way.”

He said Crossman goes “over the top” when it comes to safety concerning
airsoft guns in Canada, like adding the orange tips to the barrel ends of the guns
for sale in Canada, where customs regulations require the replicate guns be made
of clear plastic, so as not to cause confusion with real guns.

“Our goal with airsoft guns is to help families rediscover the fun of shooting,”
said Stefanko. “We don’t condone their use for shooting other people at
all. It ultimately comes down to the responsibility of parents and adults to make
sure the guns are used properly.”

Wal-Mart Canada did not return calls to discuss its airsoft sales, but an official
with an Alberta company that sells the weapons via the Internet did.

“There has not been an organized push to bring airsoft into the country, it
has mostly been private efforts through small stores,” said the official with
Buyairsoft.ca, who asked not to be identified.

The company, which was founded just two years ago, now sells a wide range of airsoft
guns – replicas of everything from an Ultimate Bolt Action Sniper Rifle and M16
rifles to the Desert Eagle .44 Magnum – to people of all ages “from Salt Spring
Island, B.C., to Stittsville, Newfoundland. Obviously we sell more guns to larger
cities such as Montreal and Calgary. However, per capita, we probably sell the most
to small towns.”

She noted, too, that sales tend to follow a pattern – one that I witnessed here
in this rural village, a half-hour’s drive east of Quebec City.

“We find that when we start selling product to one small town for the first
time, we have multiple orders from the same town over the next few weeks,”
she said. “Airsoft is addictive and very quick to be picked up once people
have seen the product or a game being played.”

That was evident watching my son and his friends in battle.

Divided in schoolyard fashion into two teams of about 10 players each – half with
guns, half without; all wearing a variety of protective eyewear ranging from the
safety glasses supplied by the gun-maker to ski goggles and sunglasses – they ran
around on the grass inside the village’s outdoor rink, shooting each other to
screams of pain and laughter in an ad hoc game that resembled tag.

“This is the best game I’ve ever played,” says Alexandre Couture,
a tall and lanky 13-year-old who recently bought an airsoft pump shotgun – one of
a half-dozen being used that night. “It’s really good exercise and it’s
a blast shooting other people.”

“It’s awesome,” adds Alexis Herrmann, a 12-year-old with an infectious
smile who has also participated in airsoft battles with kids his age in other nearby
villages – and who proudly shows off a half-dozen angry red welts on his back at
the break. “It hurts to get shot but you have to to get close enough to shoot
somebody.”

All the kids said they recognized the danger of being shot in the eye. But they
said those risks were diminished by the rules they set, like no shooting after a
time out is called and no shooting of those who aren’t wearing protective glasses.

Those crimes are supposedly punishable by the mass shooting of the perpetrator by
all the participants. But in the half-hour I watched the kids wage simulated warfare,
I saw numerous infractions that went unpunished – one of which resulted in a welt
on the face of a non-combatant.

I also saw many cases of dangerous handling of firearms, like the pointing of a
weapon – with finger on trigger – at unprotected faces. Loaded guns were passed
around freely, their barrels waving in every direction, instead of pointing down
to the ground and away from others.

According to the Montreal Children’s Friedman, most injuries that occur in simulated
battles happen when the participants think the game is over and remove their protective
gear.

The use of weapons by unsupervised minors is also a recipe for disaster.

“These guns are not toys (and) things can get out of control very quickly,”
she said. “They have the potential to cause serious injury at any moment (so)
kids should not be let loose with them.”

She added that, like any activity in which risks are involved – everything from
skiing and cycling to the use of airsoft guns and backyard trampolines – it’s
up to parents to assess those risks.

“A great day outdoors filled with laughter and fun should not end in a visit
to hospital.”

Much to William’s chagrin, this dad has decided the shootouts at the outdoor
rink are a little too far on the wild side. And I’m not alone, since the young
adults in charge of the Maison des jeunes next to the rink have asked both their
administrative council and the village to ban the guns from the municipally-owned
facility, which is designed as a safe place for teens and pre-teens to hang out.

Not wanting to be a stick-in-the-mud, however, I have offered to supervise airsoft
battles between my son and his friends in a nearby sandpit or another suitably isolated
location. That way I can make sure the guns are being used safely, safety glasses
are being worn properly, and fights are fair.

For safety tips about activities from biking to paintball, go to

www.thechildren.com/en/health/conditions.aspx

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !