Paintball & Laser Tag Revisited

[Gold Winger]

I just received this. . .

 

May 14, 2008

 

To: Scout Executives

 

From: Mark L. Dama

 

Director, Insurance and Risk Management

 

Subject: Unauthorized and Restricted Activities

 

Risk Management and Health and Safety have received several inquiries

as to whether paintball and laser tag are authorized Scouting

activities. Per the Guide to Safe Scouting, "The following activities

have been declared unauthorized and restricted by the Boy Scouts of

America . . . Pointing any type of firearm (including paintball, dye,

or lasers) at any individual is unauthorized. "

 

Over the last several years, we have learned of three serious eye

injuries that have taken place on Scouting outings in which paintball

was one of the activities. Be aware of the following alert, which

soon will be posted on the Scouting Safely area of Scouting.org:

Paintball is prohibited in Scouting!

 

Paintball poses a significant risk of injury, especially among

children. In contrast to other Scouting activities involving

firearms, the object of paintball is to fire a pellet at a speed of at least 300 feet per second at another human. A paintball that hits

the body may produce a mere sting or welt, but a paintball that strikes an eyeball can cause severe injury to the eye and even

blindness. The Consumer Product Safety Commission noted three deaths

between 2002 and 2005 from paintball gun equipment.

 

At the request of the Risk Management Advisory Panel, the Health and

Safety Committee is working to establish guidelines for laser tag

activities, including and not limited to indoor commercial

facilities. The guidelines will become part of the Guide to Safe

Scouting.

[evmori]

Sounds like laser tag will be allowed but paint ball not. Seems kinda wimpy basing the decision on three scouts being hurt & citing safety as the reason.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[Gold Winger]

Does that surprise you? We live in a world where one man puts a bomb in his shoe and now millions of people have to remove their shoes to be allowed to fly.

[Beavah]

Yah, especially given our (much worse) safety record in other areas, eh? Paintball at commercial facilities is safer than Scouting by quite a bit, in terms of both deaths and serious injuries. More popular, too.

 

I wonder if the BSA injuries cited were prior to the revised eye protection / goggles standards.

 

The fatalities mentioned were bizarre product defect stuff involving CO2 cartridges breaking off their regulators and flying off and hitting someone. Three fatalities in ten years with 8 million users per year is extremely low. We kill more people just at Philmont.

 

I'm not a paintball player, eh? I just hate to see folks misrepresent da truth. If we're gonna ban paintball capture-the-flag because it's too military or we don't like kids playin' "wargames" or we like havin' a smaller market share of youth each year that's fine. I'm happy to support if it's coherent and sensible. We shouldn't pretend it's a safety issue, though.

 

Thanks for postin' da letter, GW. There's a lot of "internal politics" goin' on over this issue it seems. I figured it was dead after the Risk Management Advisory Panel got reversed by the "no wargames" rulin' earlier in the year.

 

B

 

[SR540Beaver]

This comes up from time to time and there is always someone who complains. I've played both and I found them extremely fun....in their own place and time. Where do these activities fit into your scouting program exactly? I like to think that our PLC provides a fun filled calendar each year as evidenced by a roster of 60 boys and anywhere from 15 to 20 new scouts crossing into the trip per year. We must be doing something right. To date, we have never had the need to provide activities like paintball, laser tag or sod surfing to atract them. They are free to do these activities anytime they can talk their parents into taking them. But then, we are the kind of sticks in the mud that do skits at campfires instead of firing up a generator, hanging a sheet and watching a movie on DVD, so what do we know?

 

Bottom line, if BSA says not to do it, don't. Doing so sets a poor example of character.

[Its Me]

 

That report and justification is just bogus. The bullet velocity of 300 feet per second is the max not the minimum. At the church where my sons play once a month they chronograph the gun to make sure all guns fire below the limit. At the fields I have played a religion does not begin to describe how they enforce the full face mask rule.

 

Welts and bruises are part of the game. But do it once and if it bothers you don't do it again. I organized a company paint ball event and half the participants were women. They were told these fear mongering stories by other before they went about the horrors of paint ball. I will suggest that the author of the above exaggerated piece has never played and has only learned paint ball from fear mongering others. The author should have used her pen name, Sissy.

 

Incidentally the women that went had a great time. They asked when I would organize another.

 

 

 

 

[Beavah]

Nobody's advocatin' playin' paintball as a Scoutin' activity. Just that the character thing runs both ways. It's not an example of good character to be untruthful about the reason for a prohibition. If BSA is philosophically opposed to "wargames", and that's reflected by a national executive board vote rather than just da opinion of someone in an office, that's fine eh? But we shouldn't be makin' false claims about the safety of a popular sport. For lots of folks, that sport is their livelihood, eh? False claims can do harm to real people.

 

B

 

[Kudu]

We live in a world where one man puts a bomb in his shoe and now millions of people have to remove their shoes to be allowed to fly.

 

Be thankful he didn't hide it in his underpants.

 

Kudu

 

[Gold Winger]

"Be thankful he didn't hide it in his underpants."

 

I've said that many times :-)

[Eamonn]

Am I the only person on the planet who has never ever played Paintball and Laser Tag?

 

Of course having never played these games I can't comment on how safe or un-safe they are.

But..

I have attended a few Scouting events where video games are part of the program. (I'm not saying this is a bad thing!)

Many of these games seem to be about in some way blowing up and killing your "Enemy".

I can't help thinking that if the argument is about Character? These games fall under the same heading.

I'm not into video games. So again maybe I shouldn't go there?

OJ has a lot.

I quit when the wire on the control of the Nintendo broke before I finished Zelda!!

Eamonn.

[Gold Winger]

I've never played laser tag or paint ball either. Played "army" as a kid, "you're dead - - - no I'm not".

 

Never had a desire to do it as a grown up.

 

 

[Beavah]

Am I the only person on the planet who has never ever played Paintball and Laser Tag?

 

You and I might be, eh? I think it's an age thing. My knees still hold up for backpackin', but not for runnin' around playing the equivalent of capture the flag.

 

Paintball these days currently averages close to 10 million participants per year, of which a bit less than 2 million are "frequent" players. I think the LaserTag numbers are substantially higher, with a slightly higher percentage of "frequent" players.

 

B

 

[Eamonn]

"You and I might be, eh? I think it's an age thing"

I resemble that remark

Ea.

[Kudu]

Eamonn writes:

 

Many of these games seem to be about in some way blowing up and killing your "Enemy".

 

Scout games have always been about blowing up and killing other Scouts.

 

Human boys enjoyed "killing" each other as "enemies" from the misty dawn of time until the dark hour when feminists were invented.

 

Here are a couple of the typical "violent content" games invented by Baden-Powell (the guy who invented Boy Scouts):

 

LION-HUNTING: "If the hunters fail to come up to him neither wins the game. When they come near to the lair the lion fires at them with his tennis balls (or snowballs, weather permitting), and the moment a hunter is hit he must fall out dead and cannot throw his tennis ball. If the lion gets hit by a hunter's tennis ball he is wounded, and if he gets wounded three times he is killed.

 

SNOW FORT: "The snow fort may be built by one patrol according to their own ideas of fortification, with loop holes, and so on, for looking out. When finished it will be attacked by hostile patrols, using snowballs as ammunition. Every Scout struck by a snowball is counted dead.

 

SIBERIAN MAN HUNT: "A man has escaped through the snow and a patrol follows his tracks, but, when they think they are nearing his hiding place, they advance with great caution because for them one hit from a snowball means death. The escaped person has to be hit three times before he is killed."

 

For the complete texts of winter games written by Baden-Powell, see:

 

http://inquiry.net/outdoor/winter/activities/games

 

WIDE GAMES

 

Baden-Powell's "BOMB-LAYING" is a typical Scouting Wide Game: "Each Scout wears his 'life,' i.e. scarf, tie, or piece of tape, in the back of his belt as a tail, so that it can easily be pulled out.... A Scout is 'killed' when an opponent snatches his 'life' from his belt, and when 'dead' he can take no further part in the game, but must make his way quickly to a definite piece of neutral ground agreed upon before beginning the game... When the cover is good it is often possible to 'kill' a Scout without his noticing it, and when after carefully planting the 'bomb' the owner discovers he is 'dead,' his feelings are better imagined than described...If a Scout who has laid his bomb is caught on the return journey, he can be taken back to the captor's camp and made to remove his bomb, and then 'killed'."

 

B-P's "Bomb Laying" is only one of 84 Boy Scout Wide Games to be found at:

 

http://www.inquiry.net/outdoor/games/wide

 

Many Wide Games have game-extending provisions for returning to a central area to get new "lives" so that a Scout may return to the game to "kill" and/or be "killed" again!

 

For Outdoor Tracking & Stalking skills, see:

 

http://www.inquiry.net/outdoor/skills/tracking

 

For additional stalking games, see:

 

http://www.inquiry.net/outdoor/games/ripley/stalking

 

Be sure to check out additional other politically incorrect Boy Scout Games like "Games for Boy Scouts: Including Selected War Games of the YMCA and the Army and Navy:"

 

http://inquiry.net/outdoor/games

 

Eamonn writes:

 

I can't help thinking that if the argument is about Character? These games fall under the same heading.

 

You must learn how to think more like an American, Eamonn. Dumbing-down the Patrol Method is usually a one-two punch:

 

1) Replace a physical aspect of Scouting with an abstract concept (In this case "Character"),

 

2) Play the "feelings" card.

 

Try to work more on the whole weepy thing

 

Kudu

(This message has been edited by kudu)