Health & Fitness
What Does the Aurora Shooter Have to do with Paintball?
A deranged individual doesn't become mentally ill because of paintball, so let's stop trying to spin it that way.
Officially out of straws to grasp earlier this week, Inside Edition ran a story that blamed on paintball.
Their shred of evidence? A paintball poster that hung in the shooter's apartment was apparently the clue to his total snap from reality and the motivation behind his shooting of more than 70 people.
The paintball community, to which I have belonged for nearly a decade, is NON-violent. We promote team-based play with equipment that you must approach responsibly.
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Every paintball player knows his or her paintball marker is NOT a toy and can be dangerous when improperly handled. This nutcase didn't shoot up a theater with a paintball gun, he used a real gun—something we tend to frown upon.
The clips Inside Edition chose to feature depict tournament paintball, which does not use smoke grenades. Tournament paintball and scenario-style paintball are totally different games. Holmes was apparently fan of tournament paintball; usually, people who support one style of play don't participate in the other very often.
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Even if Holmes decided to purchase smoke grenades because he saw someone use something similar in a paintball match, that doesn't mean the game told him to massacre people in a darkened theater. The poster in his room isn't for a film about paintball warfare, it showed a sport often featured on ESPN.
Hey Inside Edition, let's drag another struggling industry through the mud. Your sorry excuse for news has just taken a run at a sport that's used for corporate team-building and bachelor party weekends. Wanna see if the shooter had a skateboard or a BMX bike too, so you can blame those industries next?
Gabe Fletcher is the owner of 1GeekMedia.com - Experts in Social Media Management, SEO Marketing & Web Design.
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Gabe Fletcher is also the lead paintball marker technician for FixMyGat.com - a popular online based paintball marker repair service center.
