Danger fear as gang steals paintball guns

Published on 22 December 2004
PAINTBALL guns which police say could be used as "lethal weapons" in the wrong hands have been stolen.
Lethal weapon: Warning over guns
Forty-eight paintball guns, gas paint canisters and masks worth about £10,000 were stolen from a site in Bassingbourn just a day after they had been transferred to the site.
Apocalypse Paintball has an office in Dry Drayton but was moving offices and equipment to its paintball site off Old North Road, Bassingbourn, when the theft happened.
Jamie Powell, from the company, said: "We had just transferred the equipment to storage containers and were waiting for the power company to install electricity into the containers and offices but the thieves got there first.
"In the right hands the guns are perfectly safe but in the wrong hands, who knows what could happen.
"We are still just about managing to run because only half the stock was taken but it is very inconvenient and never a nice thing to happen."
The raid took place overnight last Thursday.
Police believe a high vehicle, larger than a Transit van, was involved in the burglary because wires above one of the fences appeared to have been pulled down by a large van.
PC David Findlow said: "These guns can be lethal in the wrong hands and it is very difficult to tell when people are holding a firearm of any kind.
"I urge anyone with information about the incident to ring DC Ann Naylor from Sawston CID on 0845 4564564."
Information can also be passed on to Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

Hypocrisy in the paintball media

By Dale FordDec 21, 2004, 09:54

I'm in love with the sport of paintball, and have done so for 16 years now. While some wiseacres among us may make sniggering comments on my skills (or lack thereof), my dedication to the sport and my team are things that have never been questioned.
Paintball in one form or another has been around since 1981. In that time, it's advanced considerably from a technological standpoint. Nowadays, electronic triggering has become a common feature on today's paintball markers. With these triggers, trigger pulls have come down (to as little as 1mm) and rates of fire have gone up. 15 balls per second is considered slow these days, and you don't impress people with your speed until you're pulling over 20 bps.
The rub comes with the terms "Bounce" and "Ramping". "Bounce" is short for "Trigger Bounce" which means that the electronics on the gun take the noise that exists when a gun's microswitch is activated and interpret it as a legitimate trigger pull by the player. The bounce adjustment filters out the electronic noise generated by the switch so as to prevent the gun from firing from these spurious signals. All fine and well, until companies allow users to adjust their "DeBounce" down to a point where these spurious signals are once again triggering the gun without direct input from the user. The end result is a very fast gun without any talent being required of the user.
"Ramping" has two serparate meanings, but for the purposes of this rant I'll stick with ROF Ramping. This is a setting that exists stock on some boards and is a custom addition on some others. In this case the user pulls a specified ROF (usually 8-10 bps) and then the marker goes full auto, normally only limited by the loader feeding the marker.
As you might have guessed, these enhanced modes are illegal in any reputable paintball competition, but enforcement is difficult. It becomes even more difficult when companies produce boards that are made to look stock, and have features that allow the user to easily sidestep the numerous inspections that are required in today's competitive paintball. I'll forego naming the company in quesition for the moment, but it's this company's advertising scheme which has the focus of this editorial.
This company has been emailing the webmasters of every major paintball website out there, including the one I own and run with Lance, Kurt and Bryan. For reasons I won't get into here (yet another rant in the making!) my stance on "Bouncy" and/or "Ramping" electronics has been and will continue to be firmly against this sophisticated form of cheating. In every case, the proposal to advertise was accepted by other paintball websites out there, with the exception of 68Caliber.Com. What galls me to no end that some of the other websites, which are far larger and influential than ours, are taking the money and advertising these blatantly illegal boards. These are large, respected (in most cases) websites that in some cases represent mainstream magazines! When called on the carpet for this blatant hypocrisy, these people make snide comments and try their best to ignore the fact that they're enabling cheaters to get the goods they need.
What offends me the most is that not only are these people in effect encouraging cheating, but some of the major tournament series are considering caps on Maximum Rate of Fire in an attempt to curb the blatant cheating that's going on with these boards. Since I have developed the SKILL of shooting fast without assistance from my guns' electronics, these proposed caps affect MY game and affect how effective I am on the field, supporting my team. My team loves the fact that I can belt out huge bursts of fire at 20+ bps, drawing attention away from them and putting the opposition down. The fact that I do this legally with skills I have worked to develop is a source of great personal pride, and the subject of respect from within and without my team. To have these learned skills negated by pathetic little specks of humanity who are too lazy to develop these skills and rather download them is a constant source of irritation for me. The fact that 'mainstream' media outlets are enabling people to cheat by advertising for companies that cater to these lowlifes continues to shock and awe me with the hypocrisy being displayed.