No paintball or marker-ball player should ever shoot a person if they see that the person is not wearing proper safety equipment, especially goggles. However, people who understand paintball know that is it not always possible to verify your target while you are hosing down a sweet spot, hoping an opponent might run into your paintballs. With today's paintball-marker firepower, many paintballs may be in the air before your reflexes can make the marker stop shooting. Because paintball players cannot verify their targets before they shoot, everyone on the game field must wear proper goggles. Perimeter control of playing fields is critical, as people will be naturally curious, and may walk over to investigate the sounds of the markers and excited players. Proper boundary warning signs, and barriers or netting, are requirements for safe games.
"Be sure whoever you aim at is wearing proper goggles" is an unrealistic paintball safety procedure that has recently started to appear in some paintball and marker-ball safety instructions. This probably results from good-intentioned people with firearms experience, who just do not understand paintball safety requirements. Unfortunately, the same people who might falsely assume that paintball players will always verify their target before shooting, might also assume that perimeter safety restrictions are not important...and nothing could be further from the truth. In paintball, anyone who might be in danger of being hit by a paintball must wear protective goggles and headgear. And this means equipment made specifically for paintball.
One DVD, produced for marker-ball, shows players darting around a backyard, apparently utilizing landscape shrubs and children's' toys for cover as they engage in an impromptu game of marker-ball. The DVD does a fair job of outlining safety requirements, but it may also give a false impression of safety rules that would be totally inappropriate for paintball. Marker-ball is not paintball, but if we are to use it as an example for paintball wannabes, we need to share the safety procedures. The proposed ASTM marker-ball game procedure that was discussed at the Reno ASTM meeting a year ago actually appeared to have been taken from the paintball standard practice ASTM F-1777. I would love to see the marker-ball industry provide training wheels for future paintballers, but I want to see how the manufacturers propose to train the marker-ball game organizers to properly supervise games. I also wonder if some folks want two different sets of rules-one safe procedure for field operators to follow, and another practice for "home play" marker-ball. If this is in our future, we may have to rethink the marker-ball concept. Paintball needs some sort of watch guard organization to protect our interests, and to coordinate new industries such as marker-ball, so they better understand the logic and purpose of paintball procedures.
Paintball needs a fair representative voice-a new paintball industry organization (PIO) with the funding to be effective, and the fair leadership to do it right. This PIO must include the voices of users as well as manufacturers, but the vocal users (player-interest groups) cannot be allowed to control disbursements of funds that have been contributed by the manufacturers, or else the funds will dry up. In the past, a major unspoken basis for restricting membership to only manufacturers has been the attitude that if you don't help pay the dues, don't tell us how to spend the money. That's easy to understand, but there must be some way to allow some voice for interests other than the folks who write the checks. The large companies are generally better equipped to provide leadership skills, but a PIO will enjoy higher respect from outside media and federal interests, if all aspects of paintball are included in the decisions as well as the data.
A paintball industry organization should develop a player-safety program, and that program could easily include the new proposed player-safety briefing that is presently struggling against the ASTM tide. In my opinion, it is critical for our industry to agree on some sort of standard paintball player-safety briefing, and it is critical that we develop the means to subject players to that briefing. New players especially should be required to view a standard briefing on screen somewhere, before they are permitted to purchase air, CO2, or propane refills. Such a briefing could also be included on DVDs that are distributed with products, especially entry-level paintball and marker-ball markers. And that same DVD should include brief instructions for the game organizers. I worry about parents who head for the coffee on Christmas morning, while their children are tearing open packages and running out the back door with marker-ball equipment. Adult game supervision must be required, and those supervisors need some simple and specific instructions.
I am solidly in favor of both marker-ball and propane-powered paintball markers. Some powerful and responsible companies are behind both developments, and both of these revolutionary concepts can have a favorable impact on paintball. But we need to work through some obstacles. Marker-ball markers may not require users to purchase propellant-gas sources, so education and effective warnings may be more difficult. The initial propane-powered markers designed by Tippmann can utilize gas cylinders made for the camping industry that are available wherever such products are sold. It is unrealistic to think we might be able to screen the sale of those cylinders for use in paintball. However, new design cylinders made specifically for paintball markers should be subject to the same requirements as swap-out CO2 bottles, and they all should require evidence of training at the point of sale.
Nobody likes the thought of additional sales restrictions, but state legislators will continue to propose bills regarding marker appearance and control. We need to develop our own standard practices before other powerful interests shove some nasty requirements down our throat. I expect to receive some hate mail over these issues, but it's time to draw a line in the sand. Everyone knows I am strongly in favor of paintball education. However, some of my conservative views have relaxed a bit, and Paintball Training Institute is now teaching certification classes on the RAP4 milsim markers. We even teach ways to utilize these new-generation military look-alikes in normal field operations. We have also embraced the new Tippmann propane technology.
I have changed some of my personal views, and I hope to see some other folks reconsider their positions on a few important issues. Major paintball interests need to quit bickering and stand together to form a unified voice. We need a paintball industry organization, and we need a standard player-safety briefing.
PTI Class on RAP-4 & RAP-5 
PTI class. Photo by Paintball-pti.com
In past years, PTI has opposed milsim markers at traditional paintball fields, because of possible backlash from markers that bore a close resemblance to real guns. However, times have changed with the acceptance of airsoft milsim, and the recent crossover promotion with military Internet gaming. PTI now teaches how the introduction of milsim markers can pull from the ranks of Internet gamers and increase traffic at paintball fields.
PTI has also added a special two-day class just for people who want to take the RAP-4 and RAP-5 certification class without taking any other PTI certification classes. It will be given at the PTI school in Tennessee, and students may now register on line on the PTI Web site www.paintball-pti.com. Cost for the two-day class will be $475 and will include basic design theory for stacked-bolt blow-back markers. Students will learn how to tear down two different brands of stacked-bolt blow-back markers so they are familiar with the design theory of the core, before going on to the advanced RAP4 class. There will be a comprehensive practical exam and a written exam on the second afternoon. This class has been added specifically for persons who do not wish to take all of the normal PTI certification classes. There will be no prerequisite class for this separate RAP-4 and RAP-5 certification. PTI will also continue to offer the RAP-4 and RAP-5 certifications in the C5a Master Airsmith class.
