Where do i start? From the beginning of course.

My first exposure to pellet (airsoft) gun as a sport came from a friend whose dad had 'aquired' a Colt 1911 and a Walther MPL from Hong Kong, I must have been about 12 years old at the time and thought there was an element of exitement with the whole thing.

This followed through with a passion for Ninja and Commando movies and all my mates were into the same thing, and we regularly played army in the local bushland areas which were abundant in our hometown. At first it was plastic replicas or cap guns and a eh eh eh eh eh, i shot ya!

Following this we graduated onto what was known at the time as boob tubes, which is basically a pvc pipe with a finger cut off a rubber washing up glove secured with electrical tape, and we used polished pebbles commonly found in peoples driveways or front lawns in the area as the ammo, stashed in a bum bag, and used handyman goggles for eye protection from the local hardware store.

As we headed towards mid to late teens the scene started to die off as people found other interests, for myself it has always been a great source of fun and something else to do besides play video games, which funny enough paralleled what we were doing already, going bush for a tatical shoot em up.

Around this era of time alot of things which were legal became banned in Australia including Fireworks and Replica Guns, I can recall Queensland had Airsoft guns legally for a few years after New South Wales banned them and ACT had fireworks but it seems that in the light of personal injury, or hurting somebody and the Twin Tower episode western society has clamped down on everything that made the magic of being young dissapear and the wrinkles of ageing set in from that point forward.

The strange thing I have found about getting older is that I am closer to my younger days now more than ever, right down to the full set of mame 'arcade emulator' roms which i must have pumped enough 20 cent and dollar coins in as a child to pay for a deposit on a house, lest we forget Lazerzone lazer gun range and happy hour on Sunday where you paid 10 bucks and allowed unlimited credits on your favourite games!

Airsoft guns have featured in both my trips to asia and have bought a tear to my eye when i have to leave them behind due to the current laws which lucky for me are girt by sea, as for fireworks well I saw a nice set at Tokyo Disneyland and that will have to do for now, so basically it may come down to young vs old, immature vs mature or what I reckon is fun vs boredom.

So in closing i think that banning of dangerous activities should be traded for controlled environments which people can participate in safely, and when you look at it Paintball is hypocritically allowed whereas Airsoft is not, and the scar on my head comes from being shot pointblank by a Paintball gun so to all those who think Airsoft is a lame second im sure local gun club members think anything besides the real thing is second best, for me I prefer Target Shooting and whether its a Video Game a paintball a BB pellet or a real calibre round makes no difference, I do it for fun and thats what got me into the scene in the first place.