One thing I've found interesting about this bill is that they made sure to exempt paintball markers by name.
To be completely honest, it doesn't matter whether this bill passes or not. If it fails, the californian politicians will be back very soon with another bill just like this one. They'll keep trying to ban Airsoft (along with everything else) because their job is to write and pass laws, whether they're needed or not. They just "have to do something" to justify their existence.
The only point of interest here is why do they exempt paintball? Whether you want to admit it or not, Paintball and Airsoft are the same thing. However, there is one essential thing that separates Paintball from Airsoft: the marketing. Paintball markers started as a tool to mark trees for foresters. When people got the idea to shoot at each other with the paintballs, the markers were advertised as a tool to use in an extreme sport. (Have you noticed that they're called paintball markers? It's a deliberate attempt to differentiate them from firearms.)
Airsoft on the other hand started as an attempt to replace firearms since they're banned in Japan. However, it has never grown beyond that; Airsoft is still marketed as a stand-in for a firearm.
This is an important distinction to make. Since Paintball is a sport first they're nearly immune to being banned, no matter what happens. Since it's a sport first, Paintball has many organizations that can lobby for its defense whenever the government tries to attack it.
Airsoft isn't a sport to most people, it's 'that thing' that 'kids who are too young for real guns' do. In addition, most airsofters want airsoft guns so they can pretend they're in combat with firearms. There are also few, if any, organized efforts to defend Airsoft when it comes under attack. (Doesn't this sound like an easy target for a liberal politician to ban?)
You may retort: "But Airsoft is a sport! There's a great community who will stop the politicians!". There is no sport and there is no 'community' when it comes to Airsoft right now. The retailers/manufacturers are just here to make money by pushing products, and the players are too busy lusting after their guns to care. The public fields don't have much political pull (because people don't play often enough!), and the 'mil-sim' groups can't help since they're about simulating combat with firearms. We can keep getting lucky with these bills failing or having the restrictions reduced, but unless Airsoft undergoes a huge change in appearance it will be banned soon enough.
It is possible to make Airsoft immune to attack in the same way Paintball is, but a few things need to happen:
- Players need to play more often, to make fields noticeable to the politicians.
- Fields need to work together, perhaps by establishing some kind of political organization that represents them all.
- There needs to be a de-emphasis on the idea that Airsoft is a simulation of combat. This is what the politicians are using (amongst worse things) to justify the bans they want.
