Australia: Legal paintballing age on target to be dropped to 12

[dannefaerd]

You can view the page at http://www.paintball.net.nz/content.php?158-Australia-Legal-paintballing-age-on-target-to-be-dropped-to-12

[dannefaerd]

This is a pretty big deal if they manage to pull it off - for NSW anyway.

It amazes me that for a country with such amazing legal hurdles to play or own equipment that they can be so far ahead of NZ in terms of fields, level of play, etc. Some is a factor of the population that they have to play with compared to us - but even so...

[Frodo]

Population is not really a factor.

You look at Sydney, 3 and a bit million people. They have MAD restrictions, takes a LONG time to get a license and then another few months to get a gun on your license. Age limit being 16 in NSW. They still have 20 Competitive Teams (Pro - div 3) that play a lot and attend most major tourneys within Sydney. They then have probably another 20-30 teams that regularly play for fun and enter local events.

That means that NZ should have more teams than that (40 - 50) seeing as we have less restrictions, paintball is cheaper here by MILES and readily available (within a week you can have any gun on the planet) and we have a population well over 4 million.

I saw a MX event the other day and it was capped at 200 riders (all with $5000 - 20000 race bikes). The bike park I go to must get over 100 regular guys riding every weekend with machines and trailers worth between $3500 and $20000 each. So the money is there and the population is there. (before anyone says that MX isn't expensive, we regularly break our bikes and it costs a fortune to keep fixing them)

[B2]

Correct Jono..Sad thing is...The ppl that live in NZ arent Ozzies otherwsie we would have growth and a structure sorted out..Kiwis =apathy/tight fisted..etc

[Frodo]

HAHA, The reason Aussie is structured is because they are forced to be. Their laws create somewhat of a monopoly for the field operators. So the only place for people to play is at a registered field.

It is in the operators best interest to have both rec and tourney ballers, because they can pretty much charge what they like, as people cant just go and buy guns off the internet and then play at their house or farm. To get a gun into Australia it has to be sent to a dealer, then the dealer sends it to the player after it has been transferred onto their license.

It sounds like a good thing in theory, but trust me we are still 1000% better off here in NZ.

[B2]

I agree we dont those draconian laws here but hells bells we could do with some of the "Give it a go Mate" attitude they have

[dannefaerd]

So apparently the change for 12 year olds has been put on hold.

Bad news for the NSW fields...