Airsoft what is it?
- Thread starter SCOMAN
- Start date
Well, can't say fairer than that. I wish you the best.
Clearly we have different views on this matter, but the last thing I would want to do is restrict your ability to live your life and raise your kids the way you see fit.
would you be happy for your teenage kids to get into a new sport called "Stabsoft"? They're not really running around perpetrating knife massacres after all
You mean to tell me you never played 'manhunt' when you were a kid?
Maybe I was mistaken, but there is mention of playing, toys and Kids in your reply...In my head I saw "Kids" "Toys" and "Playing". As I said, I was probably mistaken and read to much into your reply.
xylaria
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
I like shooting people with larp arrows. It is the only practice on a moving target an archer can get. I was never one for the all the play acting I always felt a bit of a div being the maiden wildenbirtha of the forest clan. Fighting with latex weapons all day and drinking out of tankers at night great fun.
There is an airsoft lot in swansea. The bloke that runs it is ex para and built like you wouldn't pick a fight with him, nice bloke. I have met the odd airsoft guy that come over as obnoxious walts. You get muppets in any hobby,even bushcraft.
You're right, I did say those things. I apologise for saying I didn't.
What I meant was that I didn't perceive airsoft as being a kids thing - I was talking about something else at that point. I did perceive it as "playing with toy guns" however. If you say this is inaccurate, I'll defer to your experience in the matter as I have none. In any case it isn't the "playing" aspect that bothers me. What bothers me is learning habits and attitudes to something that looks like a gun, feels like a gun and has the same controls as a gun that are not conducive to good gun safety when what you're holding actually is a gun.
Of course, if you don't plan on ever owning real firearms, I suppose it is a non-issue. I do plan on owning real firearms at some point, hence my caution.
I play airsoft regularly and the guns are classed as a toy but also as a RIF (realistic imitation firearm) and it is playing around with guns so if you consider it as playing with toy guns then your right.
However there's a lot more too it. It's tactical and a very controlled and very simalar to a real sinario if you play mill sim (military simulation)
gun safety is a huge part of airsoft more so than at a clay shoot in some respects. As you are going to use the gun to shoot at someone. There are safe zones where guns are de maged and emptied then triple checked. That doesn't happen in a gun club. Where it's common for people to drink from hip flasks and use a gun that would easily kill someone.
I have shot all my life, shot guns and rifles airgun a and used a fac rifle. My gun safety is probably better than most peoples.
Us like minded people go into wood land to practise bushcraft, we use knifes and axes and we also mess around and have fun that doesn't mean that we are running around with knife as knife safety comes into play.
Racing car drivers don't drive a car at 200mph on a public road they can but they don't because humans are more complex than that making us about to do the same task but use different principles.
In short I completely disagree with you it doesn't teach you bad habits it teaches you a different disapline. I can see why you think the way you do, but I think it's not actually the case. Before it's said there always an exception to the rule, just as there is with anything ( there's always some idiot)
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I see what your saying I got confused when you mentioned Sumunition I misstook the concept for the product.
Simunition uses real guns - airsoft toys are only realy similar in external appearance and dont realy train effective technique - some organization are using them as part of training but more as a cost cutting exercise/to get round firearms restrictions in certain senarios of training
I've never done Airsoft - paintball and laserquest were good fun though. Do you play computer games with shooting in at all? Where do you draw the line?
Anyhow
Here's that article
http://www.foundationyears.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Confident_Capable_Boys.pdf
See the list of references at the end too
Holland, Penny (2003) We Don’t Play With Guns Here, London Open University Press
A flight simulator on a computer is quite different to the real thing, but it is still called a simulator
Combat simulation is not all about shooting the gun, think fitness, team work, stealth and so on. Have you ever seen pictures of soldiers being trained with wooden guns?
In the UK airsoft is used to train people for VIP protection by trained ex special forces, the live firing exercises have to be done in a different country, so airsoft is the best way to train in the UK.
For those of us who are never going to see real combat, its a fun way to get out to the woods and get some exercise. I do not think it trivialises guns or gun crime, in fact it gives me a greater respect for the damage that can be done with fire arms.
Combat simulation is not all about shooting the gun, think fitness, team work, stealth and so on. Have you ever seen pictures of soldiers being trained with wooden guns?
In the UK airsoft is used to train people for VIP protection by trained ex special forces, the live firing exercises have to be done in a different country, so airsoft is the best way to train in the UK.
For those of us who are never going to see real combat, its a fun way to get out to the woods and get some exercise. I do not think it trivialises guns or gun crime, in fact it gives me a greater respect for the damage that can be done with fire arms.
Being hit with an airsoft pellet bloody hurts. They can draw blood at close range but even from 30+m away they sting like hell, even through clothing.
Fun game, though, but some go a bit over the top with kit, IMHO
Fun game, though, but some go a bit over the top with kit, IMHO
I can remember going head to head (Or should that be barrel to barrel) with an Officer on my 6 weeks basic at RAF Swinderby "Military Field training" course with both of us using real SL Rifles loaded with Blanks, and I am talking feet apart firing not the "recommended" 25mtrs, using single aimed shots...
Certainly not "Playing" but they were certainly real rifles, and we were firing blanks which at that range could cause real injury at close range... He did of course pull rank and claim me as a "Kill" with the marshalling staff...
I think the military call it "Manoeuvres" and they happen quite a lot...but they "shoot" at people who aren't even the enemy using real weapons not plastic lookalikes...I don't think it is called playing though
Certainly not "Playing" but they were certainly real rifles, and we were firing blanks which at that range could cause real injury at close range... He did of course pull rank and claim me as a "Kill" with the marshalling staff...
I think the military call it "Manoeuvres" and they happen quite a lot...but they "shoot" at people who aren't even the enemy using real weapons not plastic lookalikes...I don't think it is called playing though
Well indeed wingstoo, but they are professionals training to kill for real. Civilians coudn't get in on real military excercise for love nor money, they're just too dangerous. Soldiers are regularly killed on these exercises. I recall hearing of one incident where the flash deflector they install on the end of the barrel came away and was launched into someone. Don't know if they were killed, but I can't imagine it was fun.
Even in the military, "pointing guns at actual people" training is pretty unusual because it is so dangerous. For the most part it is paper targets either on a range or a "shoot house".
Don't get me wrong - I can see the appeal of airsoft, and I can see I'm on the losing side of this particular argument. I can see the merit all of your points - particularly the one about gaming. For many years I was an avid 1st person shooter player, and if airsoft is looked at as a live action version of that I can see how you compartmentalise your thinking about it as seperate from "actual combat". That hadn't occured to me.
To that end I retract my objections. I will say though, if I wanted to engage in a semi-realistic war game, my preference would be for real action markers rather than airsoft. Lower environmental impact for one thing, unless you use biodegradable bbs. I still don't think it is my cup of tea though.
Even in the military, "pointing guns at actual people" training is pretty unusual because it is so dangerous. For the most part it is paper targets either on a range or a "shoot house".
Don't get me wrong - I can see the appeal of airsoft, and I can see I'm on the losing side of this particular argument. I can see the merit all of your points - particularly the one about gaming. For many years I was an avid 1st person shooter player, and if airsoft is looked at as a live action version of that I can see how you compartmentalise your thinking about it as seperate from "actual combat". That hadn't occured to me.
To that end I retract my objections. I will say though, if I wanted to engage in a semi-realistic war game, my preference would be for real action markers rather than airsoft. Lower environmental impact for one thing, unless you use biodegradable bbs. I still don't think it is my cup of tea though.
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That is one thing that does have me thinking though, paint ball is bio-degradable, and plastic bb's aren't, but maybe even that is better in a way than lead pellets from those shooting 12 bore, 20 bore, 410 over water and land which isn't under tight control when "Playing" (Clay shooting, Wild fowling, Practical SG for example) Unless they are now using steel pellets that is.
I saw a BFA (Blank Firing Adaptor) come off one of the SL Rifles and travel a good 25mtrs, luckily the lad who was firing at another Airman at the time wasn't a good shot and missed him, but it was after that when I went head to head...
Yes, people (usually servicemen) do get killed on training activities, but rarely from shooting blanks, they tend to use live ammunition on the camps near to where I am... And sometimes (rarely) they get it wrong and someone gets hurt.
More often they get injured or killed doing something very different to shooting at each other on the "Manoeuvres" transport and jumping out of planes for example.
I can certainly understand the POV of people looking in from the outside with Airsoft activities, but better they are out there doing something both physically and mentally challenging than sat around doing little.
I saw a BFA (Blank Firing Adaptor) come off one of the SL Rifles and travel a good 25mtrs, luckily the lad who was firing at another Airman at the time wasn't a good shot and missed him, but it was after that when I went head to head...
Yes, people (usually servicemen) do get killed on training activities, but rarely from shooting blanks, they tend to use live ammunition on the camps near to where I am...
And sometimes (rarely) they get it wrong and someone gets hurt. More often they get injured or killed doing something very different to shooting at each other on the "Manoeuvres" transport and jumping out of planes for example.
I can certainly understand the POV of people looking in from the outside with Airsoft activities, but better they are out there doing something both physically and mentally challenging than sat around doing little.
I used the 9mm paintball in Denmark with their diemaco's, it was good fun. Live firing execises are the surest way to test you skills. Having watched room clearance with sim rifles, the drills were slick safe and steady.
Cost cutting isn't the problem, skill fade leads to trouble.
A bit like when Maggie Thatcher found out how good the Special Forces guys were after the Embassy siege...
http://humor.gunaxin.com/badass-margaret-thatcher-story-one-talking-about/150395
And no, they don't use blanks or paintball ammo.
And a very potentially dangerous fast track to discovering lack of adequate training in others on the same range. Must be used with extreme caution, although I agree completely with what you are stating.
Airsofted for years, grown out of it now tbh, i moved onto bushcraft and didn't go back
basically airsoft is a mil-sim game of tag similar to paintball but sometimes crossed with tactical situations to add realism.
many people make many things out of it.
for me it was about a good day out with the guys, adrenaline and flashbangs, stories about assaults and wading through smoke to shoot up the opfor (opposing force)
some make it more about the kit and will go to extreme (i do mean extreme) lengths to get very expensive stuff to emulate the looks of whatever it is they're copying whether that be a german soldier, to vietnam soldier to modern soldier or computer games and films (seen a few guys as a USMC Marine from Aliens)
if you get the chance give airsoft a go, pop along to your local site with some friends and see what you think, although the weapons look real outside on the inside they resemble an electric car, same motors, gears and batteries used throughout.
however due to their realism they are legally restricted, the law currently states that even if you have a class 1 firearms licence you cannot legally own an airsoft gun or "replica imitation firearm" as they're known. UK law, nuff said. with the exception of clear plastic or 50% painted bright colours to show it is in fact fake.
i could go into detail but it'd be good bedtime material, suffice to say its long winded.
Pete
basically airsoft is a mil-sim game of tag similar to paintball but sometimes crossed with tactical situations to add realism.
many people make many things out of it.
for me it was about a good day out with the guys, adrenaline and flashbangs, stories about assaults and wading through smoke to shoot up the opfor (opposing force)
some make it more about the kit and will go to extreme (i do mean extreme) lengths to get very expensive stuff to emulate the looks of whatever it is they're copying whether that be a german soldier, to vietnam soldier to modern soldier or computer games and films (seen a few guys as a USMC Marine from Aliens)
if you get the chance give airsoft a go, pop along to your local site with some friends and see what you think, although the weapons look real outside on the inside they resemble an electric car, same motors, gears and batteries used throughout.
however due to their realism they are legally restricted, the law currently states that even if you have a class 1 firearms licence you cannot legally own an airsoft gun or "replica imitation firearm" as they're known. UK law, nuff said. with the exception of clear plastic or 50% painted bright colours to show it is in fact fake.
i could go into detail but it'd be good bedtime material, suffice to say its long winded.
Pete
