Airsoft guns may soon be going the way of real guns around the world, even in the US. Built to resemble actual weapons, Airsoft guns instead shoot pellets and are used in several games much like paintball. These games range from freeform death match style in which all the players are basically out for themselves and anything goes, to team play that resembles war games. Although pellets are used instead of bullets or paintballs, getting hit can still result in a nasty sting and a lingering wound.
Complaints against Airsoft guns have come from a number of quarters. For instance, the University of Hawaii at Manoa has banned Airsoft guns. Despite that banor, indeed, perhaps because of itthe campus was the site of a series of assaults on students by someone using an Airsoft pellet gun. Even so, much of the uproar has less to do with the damage done by the pellets and more with the construction of the guns themselves.
Airsoft guns can take the form of handguns or larger rifles and they can look remarkably realistic. It is this realism that has raised questions of safety, not the actual damage done by the pellets. Recently in Florida, a middle school student was shot by...