Having the ability to register still does not mean that all, or even most, guns will be registered. How will such a situation prevent irresponsible/criminal firearm use?
It means that police who encounter ANY person with an unregistered gun cab take it away and charge them with a serious crime immediately and without any other reason. Anyone using an unregistered gun in a crime is completely fucked. Anyone using a registered gun in a crime either is completely fucked, or completely fucks whoever bought the gun for them.
This is ALREADY the case. The only difference would be extending registration to rifles and shotguns then?
To contrast, firearm homicides are 8,454, seven times the number of blunt objects and personal weapons, despite only one third of the country owning them. So, if ~106 million people are generating 8,454 deaths, then there's one death for every ~12,500 people. That's a %2300 percent difference.
There is a major problem with this: how many people own guns that the government and polling agencies are not aware of? How many of the gun deaths are criminals being shot by criminals using illegal weapons? How many of these deaths would be prevented by harsher regulation?
That's actually not a problem with the figures I used. I went to a study in the journal Injury Prevention (by way of a news aggregate) to find the number for real gun ownership, not relying on registry or sale figures.
Let's be real, the only reason that gun registration isn't a thing yet in the US is due to pro gun lobbyists and a political system that allows private companies to rule the Government.
I don't see to be grasping why the registration and monetary flow to another Government regulatory body would be that bad. You are giving more people jobs, giving them disposable income which they can spend to improve income and growth on at least basic goods and services. (capitalism)
Also having to deal with the high number of registrations may push the Government to look at trying digital records and (pie in the sky) recognising the importance of encrypted data and setting up the best infrastructure possible.
There will be less people who own 32 pistols and 3 assault rifles in glass cabinets to display how many arms they dare to bare, however this should always have been an aberration rather than achievable by a middle class couple (the wife of which I went to University with, she and her husband were/are staunch Republicans).
@Greg's proportional number argument makes far more sense and is often the obvious answer to "everything is a weapon" retort.
You want to know the real reason I'm pretty-much done with gun rights in the US?
Because of shit like this. The NRA lobbied to ensure that the CDC will never study guns or gun deaths.
It is this ridiculous extremism that makes me deeply dubious of the entire movement. There isn't a debate to be had because there is no possible chance of discourse. When the NRA fights doggedly against even mere study of guns, what possible rational discussion could be had with them?
The two sides aren't equal in the populus like they are in Congress. Background checks and a Federal registry of firearms are supported by %86 of citizens (source: Gallup), but Obama's bill to do exactly that died in the Senate. This isn't a matter of two forces in public opinion splitting their officials. It's a matter of a few profiteers versus popular opinion.
I agree, I think some things need to change. Vocal constituencies are unwilling to cede even an inch because of a history of both sides going too far. I think pro gun groups have been burned before so now they take an all or nothing stance, that only forces anti gunners to get more frustrated and raise the intensity of their call for action. A de-escalation is needed, but I'd call unlikely.
The (IMO valid) concern is that laws tend to not go away, and some laws tend to try and solve real problems in broad or mistaken ways. Things like Assault weapon bans were dumb, there must be better ways to address the issue without getting into issues where whether you have a piece of bullshit plastic on the wrong part of your rifle is the distinction between perfectly legal sport shooting with your sheriff neighbor, and federal prison.
If our government had hard resets on all laws on a regular basis maybe we could experiment some. The AWB that had the sunset after a 10 year run was a bad law but for that it is an example of being able to actally experiment and see if anything happens while knowing you won't be stuck with it forever. I'd be all for a 5 year trial, see if it makes a dent... and go from there.
I agree, I think some things need to change. Vocal constituencies are unwilling to cede even an inch because of a history of both sides going too far. I think pro gun groups have been burned before so now they take an all or nothing stance, that only forces anti gunners to get more frustrated and raise the intensity of their call for action. A de-escalation is needed, but I'd call unlikely.
When was gun control too strict in the US? I'm not an expert, but I've never known it to be more restrictive than it is now in any significant way.
Additionally, preventing study of gun deaths and injuries prevents us from doing work to figure out which kinds of gun laws should actually be effective at improving public health.
Additionally, preventing study of gun deaths and injuries prevents us from doing work to figure out which kinds of gun laws should actually be effective at improving public health.
Unlimited study by the CDC.
edit: shitty keyboards should be banned. I count the hours until my new das keyboard arrives. This dangerous pleb keyboard drops letters if one types too fast. STOP RESTRICTING MY HIGH CAPACITY KEYBOARDS!
I agree, I think some things need to change. Vocal constituencies are unwilling to cede even an inch because of a history of both sides going too far. I think pro gun groups have been burned before so now they take an all or nothing stance, that only forces anti gunners to get more frustrated and raise the intensity of their call for action. A de-escalation is needed, but I'd call unlikely.
When was gun control too strict in the US? I'm not an expert, but I've never known it to be more restrictive than it is now in any significant way.
Well, I'd like to look up examples myself, I recall cases but I'm tired and not terribly invested in the whole pro/anti gun thing anymore to where I have it in memory. But the point is more that there were a few cases in the past where the laws enacted ended up being more restrictive than the pro-gun constituencies that essentially conceded to allowing them to pass had bargained for. The 94 AWB comes to mind?
I'm sure many people are thinking "well those weren't even restrictive enough, or did enough to curtail violence or disarm badguys or whatever" but the point is that the pro-gunners agree too, the laws don't do enough to do that, but their perspective is that while it is an overall lackluster preventative measure, it does put more burden on those attempting to be upstanding and law-abiding citizens for the relatively minor gain.
And so it then becomes a point of 'is it ok for people who legally do a thing some people don't like to be extra burdened for little reason just as a sort of karmic social tax on pursuing that activity?' and even if one thinks that gun ownership justifies every hurdle in the world, its one of those situations where if the laws were aimed at an activity they like they cry and whine just as much. And the debate goes on and on.
At this point, like I said, I'm kindof beyond the gun debate in many ways, even though I like to keep track of it from time to time. I like owning guns and I want to see good laws that make ownership a pleasure and enable peaceable recreational use of firearms technology for a variety of reasons, while also preserving the nominal use of personal and national defense, regardless of the potential futility of those roles. But at the same time the whole culture that defends those rights is in many ways full of bad personalities, bad deals, and have taken the argument to this almost religious zeal level that I think shouldn't be required so I give about zero fucks to helping that cause at this point, and even if there was a cause that was associated with "good, solid, non-crazy gun reform that doesn't aim to just ban everything wholecloth" I would be too busy to care anyway, but I'd at least sign up for the newsletter.
And so it then becomes a point of 'is it ok for people who legally do a thing some people don't like to be extra burdened for little reason
There is a big difference between someone owning a cigarette or a shed than owning a gun. It's not like there's any equivalence for guns as a hobby with most any other hobby.
We don't let nuclear waste enthusiasts have nuclear waste. It's not a matter of not liking nuclear waste: it's a matter of nuclear waste being harmful to other people when it's easily accessible.
One could argue on that basis back and forth a lot. There are valid points on rights/entitlements/personal freedoms/public safety, where the lone is drawn and why should guns get some exemption from common restrictions placed on other items.
And then there are viable arguments that the whole comparison between nuclear anything and firearms is moot as one is a long-term, non-discriminatory poison of biology that affects things in many hard to predict ways, and one is a man made tool that requires human interaction of some kind to implement any kind of harm, and the harm is done over a specific and short timescsle. There's other arguments too: proliferation, cultural context, practical application to the individial, etc.
Most of that is a too-literal defense on some level, as the nuclear reference is more often a metaphor.
It them comes down to, are guns just, as a concept, the equivalence of nuclear fallout? In some abstract, philosophical way, as a burden on society metric... maybe? That's a conclusion one could draw. I dont see it that way, I take the more literal position that gun availability is only a problem when combined with people who would do bad things with guns, which is difficult to predict true but some standards could help a lot. and so that's where there is validity in having tighter controls on who and how a firearm is aquired, but not so much on the wholesale 'blame the gun ban it outright' mentality... because unlike nuclear fuel it isn't inherently causing harm to anyone who looks at it.
And, as an aside, if we built highly safe consumer-grade nuclear reactors and had a program that could move and transport and store and dispose of nuclear material such that tiny reactors could he purchased for powering your home or boat or whatever, of be ok with that too. Obviously the rules to do it would be ridiculous and the oversight extreme and invasive and painful, but if someone really had use for, say, a tiny reactor to power a home and we had ways of neutralizing fallout so that maybe only people who were directly exposed in the moments after an incident were harmed before it was safe, I'd call that acceptable risk for the tradeoff.
To do it would require tiny tiny fuel cells and built in containment setups such that they were like little black boxes... and maybe we invent a way of forced decay on certain elements that breaks them down to nominally stable elements. I'm forgetting all kinds of nuclear science so maybe it's impossible. But there was a lot of push for consumer nuclear things before the radiation is bad movement shut down the crazy plans. But it also threw out the baby with the bathwater right into legal and regulatory hell. So too bad. I'd be all for some things coming back. Maybe Thorium will help.
We have already shook hands with the devil on so much worse.
In Japan, you cannot buy a handgun, much less an assault rifle. In fact, even off-duty police officers are banned from carrying guns.
You can buy a shotgun or an air rifle, but it is not easy:
First, you have to take a class and a written exam. Then there's a skill test at a shooting range Next is a drug test Then a mental evaluation. Assuming you pass all those tests, you file with the police, who then run a background check. -CNN article
Surely common sense about safety needs to be applied in law. Even if nuclear bombs were permitted for private ownership, the bureaucracy should designed to be enough of a preventative measure.
Don't buy that "salt gun". IIRC its literally just a Tippman paintball pistol with a different label and a higher price. Cheaper to just buy the real deal and some pepper balls. Eventually I'll probably buy some .68 cal ones for my full size paintball guns, because why not?
Real guns still have a place for self defense, but you're probably a lot more likely to be in a situation where you might need something more than your fists but lethal force isn't necessary. I wouldn't want to shoot a drunk asshole but I'd pepper spray him in the face real good.
It does seem to be that most self defense situations with guns often don't involve shooting anyone, as just pointing the gun will often scare them off but I still probably wouldn't recommend blanks. You might just end up escalating the situation and have someone shoot you with real bullets.
While there are still issues with legality (since regardless of what ammo you shoot, legally lethal force must be necessary to use a gun in self defense) having a shotgun with the first couple shells filled with rocksalt would sure put a hurtin on someone but shouldn't be lethal.
The Salt gun is remarkably, insanely, ridiculous. It might sound like some kind of new thing to people who don't know paintball or other less-lethal technology but I don't see a single thing there that hasn't existed for many years, nor in more effective forms. At the very least, because it's a TiPX, maybe some of those dumb people might buy my Zetamags for higher-capacity shooting at intruders. I think we should market the ZetaMag as a high-cap Salt round magazine and sell it for $80/ea if it's specially branded for Salt rounds...
Hell if you wanna spend money, just buy 40 SALT rounds and store them in some zetamags clipped together and dump them at full-auto from one of these:
At least it'll be intimidating before you mag-dump the victim in the chest. That might be enough firepower to put someone on the ground and not shoot you? Who knows.
I mean, yes, a few rounds from anything can be a good advantage and even small guns like the Flashlauncher are great tools to have on hand. I'm just bummed that it even is noteworthy because they're getting tons of buzz for something so... unremarkable. It's literally someone making their own crappy Pepperballs with hipster-friendly marketing to try and target, what, the kids from Williamsburg who are strictly anti-gun? I don't get it. From the shitty 'test video' it seems Pepperball will kick your ass more than these, even if they aren't advertised with a Kickstarter-grade soundtrack where they don't even shoot the subject with the gun. At least watch what happens when a motherfucker gets tapped in the chest by the rounds from the TiPX at 300 feet per second:
Or from multiple rounds from a larger marker while wearing a jacket (music warning: obnoxiously loud metal)
And guess-what? Even the legit pepperballs don't do much to stop someone. Someone standing around and waiting for the effect will go "oh this sucks" but someone running at you is only going to be barely phased. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't stop me if I was filled with determination. Unless I got literally mag-dumped with 10-20 rounds from something shooting 350-400 fps at close range maybe?
Meanwhile a Tippmann TiPX can only barely shoot over 300 feet per second. It requires extensive modding to do much better. There are chances they messed with the reg or air chamber, but in both cases I doubt it because why? The TiPX is a great gun, I have many, but I wouldn't bank on it for defense use if I really need something hard-hitting, dead-simple, and robust. But I know paintball and many people don't so, their loss I guess?
As-is, I've done work in less-lethal launchers and I know exactly what pepperballs and FN-riot rounds look and feel like and how they are made and what goes into shooting and handling them. I know that the costs involved, simply because selling something as any sort of less-lethal product, has tons of liability attached, which increases the end-user cost by a high amount. But I can't see any reason that 10 rounds should be $50? That's a pretty serious markup. I don't think police are paying that much, and they are definitely paying a premium on recreational products of the same basic design.
At the very least I hope people buy regular paintballs as training/practice rounds and actually, you know, practice with them. Because a TiPX is not a great-aiming gun especially for someone with zero practice shooting real weapons which seems to be their target demo. They should probably encourage you to play paintball and practice shooting situations, what the sight picture is like to aim it at center-mass and what the trajectory is like. How to do things like load the cartridges and magazines, and get some kind of muscle memory for things like having to pull the trigger once to puncture the CO2 cartridge and a second time to fire the first shot. Which is something people forget to do in paintball games, and then they get shot... and I say it from hard-learned experience. Except when I get shot for it, it leaves but a welt.
Wow, $50 for 10 rounds? I know I've seen pepper balls for like $15 or $20 and I thought that was expensive.
I dont have one, but I thought you could just adjust a valve or something to get more power out of those things?
In theory you generally can, but the TiPX series has a pretty small air chamber, and the stock reg has a pretty narrow range of pressures it can operate in before dumping air out the back relief valve. The problem being if you wanted to increase the operating pressure to get more juice from the valve, it will just dump.
As I said, they could be getting these things with upgraded regs that run higher PSI, which would almost make sense as they might have a fixed output on the reg as well to try and prevent tampering, which may mean it's a custom package. The latest TGR gun which is more like an SMG look, uses the same internals but with a more efficient valve and more adjustable reg, but as far as I know those bits havn't been put into the TiPX yet.
All that to say, again, the TiPX is a great paintball gun. I would not consider it for some kind of defensive role in the stock recreational form as it has a number of eccentricities. You'd need to use it for a while, shoot through it some and get an idea of how it works, run a few 12 grams through it, before putting it away in some drawer. Some guys will shoot tjpugh 4-5 12 grams before going to play evrry time, just to adjust the velocity to match the day's ambient temps and make sure the thing is working good over a range of powerletts.
Lukily you can get all the stuff for doing just that at wal mart or Dicks or wherever paintball crap is sold... but still I don't know if people who buy these things will be told any of this.
You still need training and handling safety as if it was a real gun, storage and protection from tender touches as if you have a live firearm, and because there's no way to tell if it's loaded or not unless you're the user and you do specific checks to see... someone could end up hurt thinking it's a toy.
So all that to maybe cause an assailant pause is why most people see pepperball as but a small tool in a large range of defensive (or suppressive) tools. It's a great early force option if there is a threat or potential threat that isn't escalated to lethal force levels, but if your maximum defense tool on hand is the pepperball? I think most experts would say thay is increasing the precieved threat without really having the claws to back it up. I could be mistaken.
So that's why I'm a bit unsure about the practice of less lethal for personal defense in general as being an alternative to firearms. They do different things and only one is actually capable of stopping someone despite their intentions. So since these are too big by a mile to carry daily, unless you maybe just want to scare off a would-be robber in the home and have a plan that if they keep coming you have the hand to hand skills to manage them... I wouldn't rely on a paintball gun or anything like it as the sole tool in your home.
Plus the whole unreliable thing. If you did want one, get a Tiberius T8.1 and call it a day.
Maybe it was the T8.1 that was easier to adjust. I just remember watching some videos with a guy getting one to max power shooting some of those glass breaker balls. Really I think if you were using a paintball gun for home defense you'd be better off with a full size one that just uses a big tank. There were some pretty mean looking ones being sold in South Africa specifically for that. And carrying one of the pistols just seems too bulky. I think for soccer moms and people who don't like guns they'd just be better off with a big ass can of bear spray.
Nope, that won't be abused, at all. 0% chance it will be abused.
This will save lives in a lot of cases like domestic abuse. What abuse of this law could make that not worth it?
For one it violates due process. And nevermind family members who think nobody should own guns, or someone trying to get leverage in a divorce, imagine the great, immense power this suddenly gives to police officers. Suddenly all an officer needs is "probable cause" and BOOM! all your guns are seized. Maybe you'll get them back, maybe fuck you.
But yes, it is absolutely good to use against people who are actually dangerous. Unfortunately, the standard for "dangerous" can now include "owns guns."
Comments
I don't see to be grasping why the registration and monetary flow to another Government regulatory body would be that bad.
You are giving more people jobs, giving them disposable income which they can spend to improve income and growth on at least basic goods and services. (capitalism)
Also having to deal with the high number of registrations may push the Government to look at trying digital records and (pie in the sky) recognising the importance of encrypted data and setting up the best infrastructure possible.
There will be less people who own 32 pistols and 3 assault rifles in glass cabinets to display how many arms they dare to bare, however this should always have been an aberration rather than achievable by a middle class couple (the wife of which I went to University with, she and her husband were/are staunch Republicans).
@Greg's proportional number argument makes far more sense and is often the obvious answer to "everything is a weapon" retort.
Because of shit like this. The NRA lobbied to ensure that the CDC will never study guns or gun deaths.
It is this ridiculous extremism that makes me deeply dubious of the entire movement. There isn't a debate to be had because there is no possible chance of discourse. When the NRA fights doggedly against even mere study of guns, what possible rational discussion could be had with them?
EDIT: and guns don't inflate House representation like slaves did.
The (IMO valid) concern is that laws tend to not go away, and some laws tend to try and solve real problems in broad or mistaken ways. Things like Assault weapon bans were dumb, there must be better ways to address the issue without getting into issues where whether you have a piece of bullshit plastic on the wrong part of your rifle is the distinction between perfectly legal sport shooting with your sheriff neighbor, and federal prison.
If our government had hard resets on all laws on a regular basis maybe we could experiment some. The AWB that had the sunset after a 10 year run was a bad law but for that it is an example of being able to actally experiment and see if anything happens while knowing you won't be stuck with it forever. I'd be all for a 5 year trial, see if it makes a dent... and go from there.
But, coupled with must-issue requirements.
Dense urban centers should be allowed to further restrict concealed weapons and handguns out of sheer pragmatism.
edit: shitty keyboards should be banned. I count the hours until my new das keyboard arrives. This dangerous pleb keyboard drops letters if one types too fast. STOP RESTRICTING MY HIGH CAPACITY KEYBOARDS!
I'm sure many people are thinking "well those weren't even restrictive enough, or did enough to curtail violence or disarm badguys or whatever" but the point is that the pro-gunners agree too, the laws don't do enough to do that, but their perspective is that while it is an overall lackluster preventative measure, it does put more burden on those attempting to be upstanding and law-abiding citizens for the relatively minor gain.
And so it then becomes a point of 'is it ok for people who legally do a thing some people don't like to be extra burdened for little reason just as a sort of karmic social tax on pursuing that activity?' and even if one thinks that gun ownership justifies every hurdle in the world, its one of those situations where if the laws were aimed at an activity they like they cry and whine just as much. And the debate goes on and on.
At this point, like I said, I'm kindof beyond the gun debate in many ways, even though I like to keep track of it from time to time. I like owning guns and I want to see good laws that make ownership a pleasure and enable peaceable recreational use of firearms technology for a variety of reasons, while also preserving the nominal use of personal and national defense, regardless of the potential futility of those roles. But at the same time the whole culture that defends those rights is in many ways full of bad personalities, bad deals, and have taken the argument to this almost religious zeal level that I think shouldn't be required so I give about zero fucks to helping that cause at this point, and even if there was a cause that was associated with "good, solid, non-crazy gun reform that doesn't aim to just ban everything wholecloth" I would be too busy to care anyway, but I'd at least sign up for the newsletter.
We don't let nuclear waste enthusiasts have nuclear waste. It's not a matter of not liking nuclear waste: it's a matter of nuclear waste being harmful to other people when it's easily accessible.
And then there are viable arguments that the whole comparison between nuclear anything and firearms is moot as one is a long-term, non-discriminatory poison of biology that affects things in many hard to predict ways, and one is a man made tool that requires human interaction of some kind to implement any kind of harm, and the harm is done over a specific and short timescsle. There's other arguments too: proliferation, cultural context, practical application to the individial, etc.
Most of that is a too-literal defense on some level, as the nuclear reference is more often a metaphor.
It them comes down to, are guns just, as a concept, the equivalence of nuclear fallout? In some abstract, philosophical way, as a burden on society metric... maybe? That's a conclusion one could draw. I dont see it that way, I take the more literal position that gun availability is only a problem when combined with people who would do bad things with guns, which is difficult to predict true but some standards could help a lot. and so that's where there is validity in having tighter controls on who and how a firearm is aquired, but not so much on the wholesale 'blame the gun ban it outright' mentality... because unlike nuclear fuel it isn't inherently causing harm to anyone who looks at it.
And, as an aside, if we built highly safe consumer-grade nuclear reactors and had a program that could move and transport and store and dispose of nuclear material such that tiny reactors could he purchased for powering your home or boat or whatever, of be ok with that too. Obviously the rules to do it would be ridiculous and the oversight extreme and invasive and painful, but if someone really had use for, say, a tiny reactor to power a home and we had ways of neutralizing fallout so that maybe only people who were directly exposed in the moments after an incident were harmed before it was safe, I'd call that acceptable risk for the tradeoff.
To do it would require tiny tiny fuel cells and built in containment setups such that they were like little black boxes... and maybe we invent a way of forced decay on certain elements that breaks them down to nominally stable elements. I'm forgetting all kinds of nuclear science so maybe it's impossible. But there was a lot of push for consumer nuclear things before the radiation is bad movement shut down the crazy plans. But it also threw out the baby with the bathwater right into legal and regulatory hell. So too bad. I'd be all for some things coming back. Maybe Thorium will help.
We have already shook hands with the devil on so much worse.
It's aimed primarily at people accused of domestic abuse.
Florida police say a mother mistook her daughter for an intruder and shot her to death
So many preventable deaths.
In Japan, you cannot buy a handgun, much less an assault rifle. In fact, even off-duty police officers are banned from carrying guns.
You can buy a shotgun or an air rifle, but it is not easy:
First, you have to take a class and a written exam.
Then there's a skill test at a shooting range
Next is a drug test
Then a mental evaluation.
Assuming you pass all those tests, you file with the police, who then run a background check. -CNN article
Surely common sense about safety needs to be applied in law. Even if nuclear bombs were permitted for private ownership, the bureaucracy should designed to be enough of a preventative measure.
Will you fire the nuke?
Yes
*denied*
Will you fire the nuke?
No
Why?
Everything everywhere will die.
You may own 2
Real guns still have a place for self defense, but you're probably a lot more likely to be in a situation where you might need something more than your fists but lethal force isn't necessary. I wouldn't want to shoot a drunk asshole but I'd pepper spray him in the face real good.
While there are still issues with legality (since regardless of what ammo you shoot, legally lethal force must be necessary to use a gun in self defense) having a shotgun with the first couple shells filled with rocksalt would sure put a hurtin on someone but shouldn't be lethal.
Hell if you wanna spend money, just buy 40 SALT rounds and store them in some zetamags clipped together and dump them at full-auto from one of these:
http://milsig.com/m17/smg/
At least it'll be intimidating before you mag-dump the victim in the chest. That might be enough firepower to put someone on the ground and not shoot you? Who knows.
I mean, yes, a few rounds from anything can be a good advantage and even small guns like the Flashlauncher are great tools to have on hand. I'm just bummed that it even is noteworthy because they're getting tons of buzz for something so... unremarkable. It's literally someone making their own crappy Pepperballs with hipster-friendly marketing to try and target, what, the kids from Williamsburg who are strictly anti-gun? I don't get it. From the shitty 'test video' it seems Pepperball will kick your ass more than these, even if they aren't advertised with a Kickstarter-grade soundtrack where they don't even shoot the subject with the gun. At least watch what happens when a motherfucker gets tapped in the chest by the rounds from the TiPX at 300 feet per second:
Or from multiple rounds from a larger marker while wearing a jacket (music warning: obnoxiously loud metal)
And guess-what? Even the legit pepperballs don't do much to stop someone. Someone standing around and waiting for the effect will go "oh this sucks" but someone running at you is only going to be barely phased. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't stop me if I was filled with determination. Unless I got literally mag-dumped with 10-20 rounds from something shooting 350-400 fps at close range maybe?
Meanwhile a Tippmann TiPX can only barely shoot over 300 feet per second. It requires extensive modding to do much better. There are chances they messed with the reg or air chamber, but in both cases I doubt it because why? The TiPX is a great gun, I have many, but I wouldn't bank on it for defense use if I really need something hard-hitting, dead-simple, and robust. But I know paintball and many people don't so, their loss I guess?
As-is, I've done work in less-lethal launchers and I know exactly what pepperballs and FN-riot rounds look and feel like and how they are made and what goes into shooting and handling them. I know that the costs involved, simply because selling something as any sort of less-lethal product, has tons of liability attached, which increases the end-user cost by a high amount. But I can't see any reason that 10 rounds should be $50? That's a pretty serious markup. I don't think police are paying that much, and they are definitely paying a premium on recreational products of the same basic design.
At the very least I hope people buy regular paintballs as training/practice rounds and actually, you know, practice with them. Because a TiPX is not a great-aiming gun especially for someone with zero practice shooting real weapons which seems to be their target demo. They should probably encourage you to play paintball and practice shooting situations, what the sight picture is like to aim it at center-mass and what the trajectory is like. How to do things like load the cartridges and magazines, and get some kind of muscle memory for things like having to pull the trigger once to puncture the CO2 cartridge and a second time to fire the first shot. Which is something people forget to do in paintball games, and then they get shot... and I say it from hard-learned experience. Except when I get shot for it, it leaves but a welt.
I dont have one, but I thought you could just adjust a valve or something to get more power out of those things?
As I said, they could be getting these things with upgraded regs that run higher PSI, which would almost make sense as they might have a fixed output on the reg as well to try and prevent tampering, which may mean it's a custom package. The latest TGR gun which is more like an SMG look, uses the same internals but with a more efficient valve and more adjustable reg, but as far as I know those bits havn't been put into the TiPX yet.
All that to say, again, the TiPX is a great paintball gun. I would not consider it for some kind of defensive role in the stock recreational form as it has a number of eccentricities. You'd need to use it for a while, shoot through it some and get an idea of how it works, run a few 12 grams through it, before putting it away in some drawer. Some guys will shoot tjpugh 4-5 12 grams before going to play evrry time, just to adjust the velocity to match the day's ambient temps and make sure the thing is working good over a range of powerletts.
Lukily you can get all the stuff for doing just that at wal mart or Dicks or wherever paintball crap is sold... but still I don't know if people who buy these things will be told any of this.
You still need training and handling safety as if it was a real gun, storage and protection from tender touches as if you have a live firearm, and because there's no way to tell if it's loaded or not unless you're the user and you do specific checks to see... someone could end up hurt thinking it's a toy.
So all that to maybe cause an assailant pause is why most people see pepperball as but a small tool in a large range of defensive (or suppressive) tools. It's a great early force option if there is a threat or potential threat that isn't escalated to lethal force levels, but if your maximum defense tool on hand is the pepperball? I think most experts would say thay is increasing the precieved threat without really having the claws to back it up. I could be mistaken.
So that's why I'm a bit unsure about the practice of less lethal for personal defense in general as being an alternative to firearms. They do different things and only one is actually capable of stopping someone despite their intentions. So since these are too big by a mile to carry daily, unless you maybe just want to scare off a would-be robber in the home and have a plan that if they keep coming you have the hand to hand skills to manage them... I wouldn't rely on a paintball gun or anything like it as the sole tool in your home.
Plus the whole unreliable thing. If you did want one, get a Tiberius T8.1 and call it a day.
But yes, it is absolutely good to use against people who are actually dangerous. Unfortunately, the standard for "dangerous" can now include "owns guns."