Author Topic: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear  (Read 3723 times)

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Offline chitoryu12

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Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« on: April 26, 2013, 09:49:15 am »
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/04/23/police-nyu-student-with-arsenal-of-imitation-assault-weapons-arrested/?hpt=ju_bn4

Reading over this article and looking at the pictures of the student, I'll say he was a pretty idiotic guy and it's illegal to have airsoft guns in New York City in the first place. So I have zero complaints about him being arrested for it (though I may have my own complaints about banning airsoft guns in the first place...)

My problem here is the article. Some choice quotes:

Quote
An NYU student was arrested Monday for allegedly building realistic looking air rifles in his dorm room.

Legally and in practice, there's a HUGE difference between airsoft guns and "air guns." Airsoft guns specifically fire lightweight plastic pellets at low velocities, and thousands of people across the United States, including children, are regularly shot by them. You would either need to remove your eye protection or intentionally crank up your gun to an unsafe velocity and fire it at an unsafe distance to even cause a minor flesh wound. An "air gun", in the common and legal definitions, fires a metal projectile at much higher speeds and definitely risks injury. My own air rifle could likely penetrate several inches into a person's body at close range, which is why I don't carelessly fire it all over the place.

Quote
“It’s a little scary. I didn’t even know the person was living in our building,” said NYU senior Nicole Bufis. “I figured it was somewhere else.”

Are you kidding? It's scary that someone plays airsoft?

Quote
NYU released a statement about the incident Tuesday evening. The university said even though the gun was an airsoft rifle and “did not pose the kind of lethal danger associated with firearms… it is the case that these type of pellet guns can cause significant injury.”

Well, yeah. If you go up to someone who has no eye protection, shove the barrel against their bare eyeball, and pull the trigger. Almost every injure among airsofters is self-inflicted, things like falling and tripping.

Quote
Air rifles fire pellets through compressed air and have a range of up to 300 feet, according to published reports. Though they are designed to look like actual firearms, the air rifles only cause flesh wounds at close range.

Noooo. Again, airsoft guns don't cause flesh wounds. I've seen BBs actually cause bloody injury, but those were usually guns cranked up beyond field limits and fired at unsafe ranges. You already have to be violating regulations to cause injury.

The whole point of this is that I utterly despite how this was being reported. It's being reported as if the student was building dangerous weapons and they've got sensationalist quotes of classmates who are apparently terrified of the thought. It's drumming up fear over something nobody should be scared about, and bending the truth or using manipulative language to give people a reason to be scared. It's horrible reporting.
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Offline Rabbit of Caerbannog

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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2013, 10:16:19 am »
Airsoft gun?


Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #2 on: April 26, 2013, 10:28:01 am »
Actually, the worst injury I've ever seen at an airsoft match was a kid who tripped and broke his finger while landing. The worst SHOT I've ever taken was 15 feet (5 feet above the minimum engagement distance; at 10 feet you can't actually fire your gun and have to make a vocal kill for safety) with a gas blowback 1911. Even at that range (where the article says it should be causing a flesh wound), I got a painful welt that stopped hurting in a few minutes and went away after a week or two.

There are people who do engage in rather dangerous behavior, though. The kid who got arrested comes to mind, judging by the pics of him and his friends; along with the stupidity of running around their neighborhood with replica weapons (after removing their orange tips and thus making them indistinguishable from real guns except upon closer examination), which puts them one 911 call away from getting shot by a jumpy cop, they're wearing standard sunglasses as eye protection. Sunglasses aren't ANSI rated and will likely shatter under impact (especially if the guns he's selling really did cost $500 from their upgrades; that's about 4.5 times the cost of a decent gun), and both sunglasses and shooting glasses have gaps that allow BBs to fly under them and shoot your eye out, kid. In short, I'm not surprised he got arrested.

Then there are the people who show up to fields, have their guns chronographed at a safe velocity, then crank up the velocity when they get their gun tagged and end up hurting people. PolarStar users are really bad because the guns run on high-pressure air with an electronic control panel that lets you freely control velocity and rate of fire, so they just need to push a switch a few times to have something massively unsafe. That's how you get pictures of people with BBs embedded in their skin.
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Offline Rabbit of Caerbannog

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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2013, 10:54:12 am »
I think this sums things up:
Quote
“I mean, I’m familiar with Airsoft guns being pretty realistic to real ones or whatever; stupid to bring to a dorm, though,” said NYU junior Sourabh Dhillon.

Stupid to bring in a dorm indeed. You might know what it is, but many other people probably won't. Universities tend to overreact to even minor things that are deemed threatening, so why he thought this was a good idea is beyond me.

Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #4 on: April 26, 2013, 11:11:59 am »
I think this sums things up:
Quote
“I mean, I’m familiar with Airsoft guns being pretty realistic to real ones or whatever; stupid to bring to a dorm, though,” said NYU junior Sourabh Dhillon.

Stupid to bring in a dorm indeed. You might know what it is, but many other people probably won't. Universities tend to overreact to even minor things that are deemed threatening, so why he thought this was a good idea is beyond me.

That wasn't the main problem. It was illegal for him to have them in the city in the first place, as NYC bans imitation firearms.

Again, I really don't have a problem with him getting in a legal kerfuffle for being an idiot. My problem is the sensationalist reporting that makes it look like he was building and selling dangerous imitation weapons in his dorm room. You'd only need to remove a few quotes and change a few bits of info to make it into a story about an illegal gunsmith.
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Offline Rabbit of Caerbannog

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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2013, 11:19:08 am »
I think this sums things up:
Quote
“I mean, I’m familiar with Airsoft guns being pretty realistic to real ones or whatever; stupid to bring to a dorm, though,” said NYU junior Sourabh Dhillon.

Stupid to bring in a dorm indeed. You might know what it is, but many other people probably won't. Universities tend to overreact to even minor things that are deemed threatening, so why he thought this was a good idea is beyond me.

That wasn't the main problem. It was illegal for him to have them in the city in the first place, as NYC bans imitation firearms.
I realize that too, but having been in school most of my life I'm just saying that, common sense-wise, this was a dumb move.

Offline mellenORL

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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #6 on: April 26, 2013, 11:27:34 am »
The only reason - and it's a good one - to ban airsoft in a vulnerable place like NY and on a campus, is that if you remove the orange "toy gun" plastic barrel piece, some models are exact replicas. Movies use them as props, even in close ups. So, yeah, a realistic airsoft gun can cause panic and be plausibly effective in hostage taking and robbery if the wielder has some acting skill or self-delusions.

The pellets sting a bit when they hit, but jeeze - my last restaurant crew used to play impromptu airsoft pistol battles while on shift break in a big garage behind the restaurant when we had to work doubles. Huge fun!
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Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #7 on: April 26, 2013, 11:38:14 am »
Kid's a whole mess of dumb decisions from looking at him. Him and his friends wandering around the neighborhood with realistic-looking guns, for one. It's standard practice if you're planning on playing on property other than a formal field or military training facility to inform the local police so they know that you're going to be running around with what look like guns (also make sure you're on property you have permission to be on). Same if you're going to be doing even an amateur photoshoot in public with a fake gun, which these douches did. There's been a lot of times where police have shown up because of someone playing with an airsoft gun out on the street. If someone reports a lot of men in pseudo-military gear walking around a field with assault rifles, the police usually show up with their guns already out of their holsters. And woe betide the jumpy player who mistakes an approaching cop with a gun (especially in a game where some players are in what resemble police or SWAT uniforms) and turns to take a shot at him.

Then there's their choice of eye protection, which I already explained.
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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #8 on: April 26, 2013, 11:57:33 am »
Acutally had a case around here that's probably not slowing CBS down. Some random idiot with an airsoft collection decided that he was going to start assembling real guns. In a dorm. At my college. People freaked out when they heard him testing out the actual guns(checking the motion I believe) and called the cops. Promptly arrested and the cops started figuring out which were real and which were fake. Out of the entire collection one complete was real, believe there were parts for a second.

And like NYC, none of this was remotely allowed within the dorms.


Also, Chit, that's why you tell the cops what you're up to. Kinda like calling the fire department before a bonfire. At least that's what the paintball guys I knew did. If someone doesn't get the memo you're at least on file ahead of time.

Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #9 on: April 26, 2013, 12:02:43 pm »
Also, Chit, that's why you tell the cops what you're up to. Kinda like calling the fire department before a bonfire. At least that's what the paintball guys I knew did. If someone doesn't get the memo you're at least on file ahead of time.

As I said:

"It's standard practice if you're planning on playing on property other than a formal field or military training facility to inform the local police so they know that you're going to be running around with what look like guns (also make sure you're on property you have permission to be on). Same if you're going to be doing even an amateur photoshoot in public with a fake gun, which these douches did."

If you're ever taking fake guns out for anything, whether you're a professional film or a couple kids playing in the woods, you ALWAYS make sure the local police know what you're doing.

Speaking of bonfires, I was doing a film at New Smyrna Beach back in November where they needed a bonfire party. The crew already got the permit and had their regulated time, but beach patrol showed up to question us anyway. The guy was REALLY not wanting to leave even after he got showed all the papers. Guess he was itching to bust someone.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2013, 12:04:54 pm by chitoryu12 »
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Offline Osama bin Bambi

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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #10 on: April 26, 2013, 05:34:41 pm »
When I read this thread, I was thinking of Nerf guns, which are obviously toys and can't be mistaken for real guns, like, ever. :P
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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #11 on: April 26, 2013, 06:12:18 pm »
You'd be surprised.

Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #12 on: April 26, 2013, 06:35:53 pm »
When I read this thread, I was thinking of Nerf guns, which are obviously toys and can't be mistaken for real guns, like, ever. :P

A lot of people have a big fear over even vague imitation firearms, since criminals can paint real guns to look fake. I've even seen a ton of posters in NYC (as in saw them with my own eyes all over the subways for a week straight) with a pic of painted Glocks to show how they can be made to look like "toys." As long as it's vaguely gun-shaped, some officers will get really jumpy over things that anyone else would decry as obvious toys.

Also, on the subject of airsoft, it's the subject of a TON of misinformation in the media like the CBS report linked in the OP, which rather ridiculously equates them to dangerous weapons. The ATF seized airsoft guns claiming that they could be converted to real guns (good luck with that), for instance. And police officers don't necessarily understand the difference between airsoft guns and real guns even when shown how they operate. Unfortunately, kids like this jackhole give us a bad name and are what's inspiring legislators in Los Angeles to try and permanently ban airsoft in the city.
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Offline Barbarella

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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #13 on: April 27, 2013, 11:08:05 am »
Airsoft gun?



You know? I was just gonna make a comment about that movie and you beat me to it!

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Re: Airsofter arrested in NYC, CBS drums up fear
« Reply #14 on: April 28, 2013, 01:25:56 am »
Several of the guys in my dorm have airsoft and paintball gear, and nobody freaks out about it. I don't know what causes some people to be more stupid and panicky than others when they see something that remotely resembles a firearm, but I kinda gather (after my trips to the east coast) that the west coast is just more laid back. NYC-dwellers can be pretty jumpy.
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