Strike me pink: paintball open to 16-year-olds
Canberra Times, Page: 7. Saturday, 17 January, 2009
Forget funky clothing arid jewellery, iPods, or even Stephanie Meyer’s latest vampire book.
All twin sisters Vanessa arid Cassandra Bryl wanted for their 17th birthday was a game of paintball.
The girls turn 17 tomorrow but took advantage of new laws that came into effect on Thursday that now allow 16-year-olds to play paintball.
Vanessa said she had always wanted to try paintball and it had been “heaps of fun”.
“It’s like the video games, like Xbox.” She said she had “some bruises” but “nothing like crazy bad”.
Carranna Morris, 17, one of the twins’ friends, enjoyed the suspense of the game.
“You’re always waiting for someone to pounce on you.” Of the group there were six girls and two boys and Carranna thinks paintball is “something for everyone”.
“It doesn’t really matter whether you’re a girl or a guy. Guys have some advantages, but so do girls,” she said. “Girls are a lot more careful where they go and are more strategic whereas guys just go out and fire, fire, fire.
The owner of Tuggeranong business Adventure Paintball, Kieran Hynes, said phone and web site enquiries had tripled since Thursday.
Mr Hynes pushed for the new laws because of demand. He said 16 was “old enough”.
“You can have a firearm at 12 on a rifle range, you can play contact sports at any age, you can get a licence and be driving a lethal weapon at 16, you can join the military at 16,” he said.
The Firearms Amendment Act also decriminalises the ownership of paintball guns and allows people over the age of 18 to obtain a licence to own them.
Mr Hynes said one of the biggest hurdles to paintball growing in the ACT was the lack of tournaments.
“People wanted to use their own guns and couldn’t own their own guns [in the ACT] and people from interstate couldn’t come here with their own guns,” he said.
“But now the laws have changed, hopefully we can start running some reasonable tournaments in Canberra.”
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