[The Inflicted]

Originally Posted by mountainviewchris

I got a phone call this morning from CNN, they suspected that he shopped with us. They were wrong, and it wouldn't matter if he did, paintball is not a sport that promotes violence.

-Chris

Is that all the researcher asked you?

[notyourninja]

Yay mass murder psyco loves derder.... Hooray beer.

[Gville827]

Originally Posted by stevebski

So if he owned a poster, and did this. I own the dvd, does that mean I'm a psychopath too? Or worse?

The vultures are reporting any little detail they may find that the rest of the vultures haven't. Soon they'll be interviewing the neighbors and (gasp) we'll read he hot hair cuts on a regular basis and didn't recycle.

This incident is tragic in every sense. There is no good reason to help the media exploit it. 12 people died, anyone see any reports on how those individuals may have been pillars in their community? Nope. Media wants us to see it from one POV. Don't play into their agenda.

This.

I'd much rather see stories about the VICTIMS. It's already a tragedy and really there is no reason to add more misery, however honoring their lives would be more rewarding from someone on the outside looking in than about how crazy this a**clown was. Stop giving this douche publicity, instead tell of the victims lives.

Just my opinion, but either way, he's getting what he wanted as long as the media continues to fuel his fire.

[ArchAngelIon]

"Before they did, a man in an ATF T-shirt could be seen measuring a poster on a closet that advertised a DVD called "Soldiers of Misfortune." The poster showed several figures in various positions playing paintball, some wearing masks."

My heart goes out to the victims of the shooting, however I would hate to see unneeded pressure on paintball as result of this incident. I wonder as to what extent the suspect was involved with the sport.

Full article can be found here:

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/police-...PzJXUTZvbu#_=_

[smokeage]

With all the attention on gun laws as a result of the shooting its not a very big leap to say paintball could be in the media cross-hair next.

Will it for sure? Probably not, but simply bringing it up here is not a crime against humanity like some of you bleeding hearts are trying to make it out to seem.

/angry rant

[Professional Rookie]

It's sad really. If they find a bunch of baseball gear in his place, do you really think anybody on a baseball forum is concerned about the bad mark it puts on their sport?

[Mocking Da Bird]

Originally Posted by Professional Rookie

It's sad really. If they find a bunch of baseball gear in his place, do you really think anybody on a baseball forum is concerned about the bad mark it puts on their sport?

Apparently. If a sport, especially paintball, is in the details of a tragedy, EVERYONE on this forum will start to say things like "This ruins paintball". Which pisses me off the most.

People die everyday from a baseball bat to the head, but does that tell parents that they shouldn't let their kids play baseball? Hell no, however, since the word "paintball" and "gun" are synced so well together, people think that buying paintball guns are just to shoot cars or houses...

The word "gun" frightens people because if paintball is involved in a shooting, the media will start to point fingers and blame **** that wasn't supposed to in the first place.

Whoever says "this ruins paintball" is extremely stupid. It gives no bad feedback to the game at all....

[Ucantbevan]

Just because he played paintball doesn't give it a bad rep. Would've been funny if it was a Tim Tebow poster though.

[The Inflicted]

Originally Posted by Professional Rookie

It's sad really. If they find a bunch of baseball gear in his place, do you really think anybody on a baseball forum is concerned about the bad mark it puts on their sport?

That depends on whether he killed people by beating on them with a club-like piece of equipment or throwing things very hard at them.

Our hobby, unfortunately, builds a markedly different skill set.

[DAE[DarkJoker]]

And now they want tougher gun laws. Criminals don't follow laws, isn't that ironic guys???





:doireallyneedtoputadodgy:

[Icon0clast]

The worst part about this is the horrible journalist ties to make the tie of that crazy sob wearing a GAS MASK to players on the poster wearing PAINTBALL masks. With 5 seconds of research any journalist could find that a paintball mask is required in the sport. Bottom feeder huffington post journalists are great.

[ddr421]

Originally Posted by DAE[DarkJoker]

And now they want tougher gun laws. Criminals don't follow laws, isn't that ironic guys???





:doireallyneedtoputadodgy:

What are you talking about? Criminals are always law abiding citizens and never kill people!


And I've never liked cinemark (however it's spelled) cause they don't allow chls on the property, me personally I feel lot safer knowing there's at least 6 texans with a chl in one room

[The Inflicted]

Originally Posted by Icon0clast

The worst part about this is the horrible journalist ties to make the tie of that crazy sob wearing a GAS MASK to players on the poster wearing PAINTBALL masks. With 5 seconds of research any journalist could find that a paintball mask is required in the sport. Bottom feeder huffington post journalists are great.

What are you talking about?

[tyler12]

Originally Posted by Professional Rookie

It's sad really. If they find a bunch of baseball gear in his place, do you really think anybody on a baseball forum is concerned about the bad mark it puts on their sport?

The 2 sports cannot be compared in this incident...it is ignorant to think the situation would be the same with a sport as big and popular as baseball. We are fighting hard to make paintball MORE known, but not in this way.

[The Inflicted]

Originally Posted by gator50

when you show interest in a sport thats main focus is shooting people, the general public tends to make these connections. someone who plays the sport knows better, but when a housewife browsing yahoo sees paintball in an article about the worst mass shooting in american history bad things are going to happen.

edit: and the fact the dvd is called soldiers of misfortune doesnt help either. another thing the casual reader wont look into and just draw conclusions about.

maryln manson wasnt responsible in any way for the shooting at columbine, but somehow he got his name dragged through the mud for it. This is no different

You're famous.


http://www.insideedition.com/news/86...-massacre.aspx

[Murph1329]

Originally Posted by The Inflicted

You're famous.


http://www.insideedition.com/news/86...-massacre.aspx

holy **** you mean pepole outside of us read this stuff?!?!?!

[The Inflicted]

Originally Posted by Murph1329

holy **** you mean pepole outside of us read this stuff?!?!?!

This week they do. So mind your Ps and Qs.

[drgonzo]

Originally Posted by The Inflicted

You're famous.

http://www.insideedition.com/news/86...-massacre.aspx

Gotta love how they cut the quote off before the actual point was made.

As for the whole thing ... the majority of current players weren't playing at the time, but in the early days of the sport, it had a big issue with being conflated with survivalism and general gun nuttery. Bright colors in clothing, on fields and particularly on markers was seen as a way to really divorce paintball from any such image (not to mention the term "marker" itself).

But over time, as paintball became mainstream and it started being taken for granted that people understood what paintball was and wasn't, the industry became careless and over-the-top marketing appealing to the young male demographic started growing.

This could be a chance for introspection in the sport. It's not necessarily wrong for them to pursue a bit of aggressive-fantasy marketing and the rise of milsim isn't necessarily bad even though it runs directly counter to paintball's early image struggle. As we players know, none of that led to a greater incidence of paintball-related violence.

But to counter this kind of misleading media, there need to be trade and/or player organizations with spokespeople who can be visible at times like these.

[The Inflicted]

Believe me, I remember the conscious push towards bright colors and speedball, though the cynic in me thinks it was more about encouraging faster games that made players buy more paint than improving the hobby's image.

You're right also about the the more recent drift back into the woods, though I think it's more about the hobby going back to equilibrium more than anything else.

10 years of American war probably has something to do with it too.

On the bright side for paintball's public image, the rise in popularity of airsoft has been absorbing a lot of the flak, not only in terms of public attention to war-like hobbies, but also the participants with more, shall we say, "belligerent" aesthetic tastes. The average Star Wars-themed scenario game looks positively hokey in comparison.

A lot of good that's going to do us now, though.
If pundits in the media are already slinging arrows at Warner Brothers for making an "ultra-violent" movie like Batman 3, it's going to be a very bumpy couple of months for us paintballers.

[drgonzo]

Originally Posted by The Inflicted

Believe me, I remember the conscious push towards bright colors and speedball, though the cynic in me thinks it was more about encouraging faster games that made players buy more paint than improving the hobby's image.

Yeah I knew you weren't among those youngins

Originally Posted by The Inflicted

You're right also about the the more recent drift back into the woods, though I think it's more about the hobby going back to equilibrium more than anything else.

10 years of American war probably has something to do with it too.

On the bright side for paintball's public image, the rise in popularity of airsoft has been absorbing a lot of the flak, not only in terms of public attention to war-like hobbies, but also the participants with more, shall we say, "belligerent" aesthetic tastes. The average Star Wars-themed scenario game looks positively hokey in comparison.

A lot of good that's going to do us now, though.
If pundits in the media are already slinging arrows at Warner Brothers for making an "ultra-violent" movie like Batman 3, it's going to be a very bumpy couple of months for us paintballers.

Well, it does remain to be see how much of a paintballer he was. Who knows where that poster came from or what it meant. This could be a shot in the dark (no pun intended) and fade away if it gains no traction.

Heck the paintball connection with those Virginia terrorists fizzled out without much damage, and those guys actually did try to use paintball to train for terror. So maybe it truly has become mainstream enough to absorb this. Then again those guys had stereotypical Muslim-sounding names ... god I hope I don't regret bringing them up in this thread.

ANY MEDIA READING THIS THREAD: Please give paintball a fair shake in reporting. Don't cherrypick partial quotes posted on an internet forum without doing some due diligence of your own. That's lazy reporting and journalistically unethical.

[FreeFlowGuy07]

Just saw the worst media blast on this subject. I live in Washington State and the local Seattle news "King 5" just blasted paintball in one of their coming up tonight commercials...The headline came on "Holmes Massacre:Smoke bomb used tied to violent game of paintball". My jaw dropped... During the headline they played clips of people getting bunkerd.... I called King 5 about the subject only to be forwarded then put on hold for 35 minutes, in which I eventually hung the phone up. Im writing an angry letter, this makes me sick