Irresponsibility

I've mentioned a certain Airsoft Retail establishment before and how they seem to be a bunch of kids who are constantly trying to one up each other. Mind you the store is owned by Twenty/Thirtysomethings so you'd think they wise up. Nope. This store, NA is the initials I will use.....is responsible for bringing people into the sport of Airsoft. Now everywhere else safety safety safety is encouraged and stressed over anything else. Most fields and organizations nationwide have done studies, etc and feel that an airsoft gun shooting at 400-425 Feet Per Second is hard enough and safe for folks to play with. Anything higher and you run the risk of serious injury especially if you don't have engagement distances. Mickey, an employee of Airsoft Extreme one of the best retailers out there, has a sniper rifle that shoots 600 fps. Mickey always engages from 200 feet away...that's it. He may go farther back, but he never gets closer than 200 feet. Why? His gun's velocity when it reaches the end of it's 200 foot range slows down to a safe level. If he was too close, you'd have puncture marks and heavy bruising. NA introduces people to the "mine is bigger than yours" mentality when it comes to airsoft. Instead of encouraging people to upgrade a gun from stock speeds (225-250) to medium range (300-400) they encourage upgrades to "let's see how hard we can make this thing shoot". Insane!!! They put on their own games at the Bad Karma Field and have their own waiver because they refuse to abide by the Bad Karma rules. The owner of the Field is fine with this as long as they have particpants sign the NA waiver. These games are games I refuse to go to. Many others that I know feel the same. Just this past Sunday a new guy with tons of cash to spend on Airsoft had a game at the field. His gun shoots 645 fps....I shit you not. These guys regularly play with high fps guns and use no engagement distances what so ever. I remember someone that went to their games giving someone crap for going off after he was hit point blank in the back of the neck with a gun shooting 612 fps. Ummm you hit me with a plastic BB at point blank range with something that almost has the same kick as a .22....then yeah I'm going off on you. I'm dropping my gun and kicking the crap out of you until you feel the same pain as I'm feeling. The irresponsible actions of these schmucks are going to get us some bad press and may even get our sport banned. I hope not for their sake.