This post was published over 700 days ago and therefore may not represent current Outside Context thinking or opinion. Please, do not let that detract from your enjoyment of it! 
There is much debate regarding this on the airsoft forums, here is my take:
Women shot dead. Those are the facts. The rest is conjecture…the details of the shooting are clearly unknown, but in the past whereas I have always come down on the side of the police, these days I not so inclined. I feel that the police have made some horrendous mistakes and that this is due to too much pressure on the firearms officers.
Firstly, I disagree with shooting to wound. Any shot is only a wound. The FBI have proved in great and gory detail that the Mozambique drill is the only way to get an opponent to stop, let alone die. Intentionally shooting to ‘wound’ is actually a colossal waste of time and much more likely to engage a gun fight rather than a take down.
As for the wider reporting of this event, it is sham: the Metro reported that carrying an airsoft gun is only legal “with a special licence”.
The problem is essentially due to the definitions being blurred at the best of times. A BB gun can be an airsoft gun, a G10 metal BB plinker, a suped’up metal BB rat killer, a Stock TM, a cheap springer from the market, Lex’s patriot, or even with a big enough spring: a lethal weapon.
As for the conversion of BB guns to real firing weapons, well let us not forget that a .2 BB is the same diameter as a .2 bullet… Internals aside, such misuse is not outside the realms of possibility to the insane or criminally stupid.
It is not for the media to take our side in this debate (that we are completely harmless sportsmen and women) or to take the other side (that we are survivalist WACO style fruitcakes that like hurting people), but tragically; they do take sides. This is because, as far as they are concerned, if the police are shooting people carrying these guns, it must be that they are dangerous. Else why are the police nailing women in carparks? Such inferences are the suggestions in the reports (it is equally damming that they parade her martial arts prowess as some sort of character flaw). Should the police reaction to every situation involving any sort of gun go from peace to death without being able to pass through anything in-between? Where were the tasers? The beanbag guns? The negotiators?
The press, in my opinion, are conspiring to glaze over this policy of death when they immediately start with an assassination of their own; going after the women’s character.
I know that most newspapers write for the common man and that people think such a concept is a myth, but it isn’t. The common man is one who is easily riled, quick to judge and bored shittless by life. He watches ‘Enders, smokes tabs, drinks beer to excess, follows football, loves sensation of any kind, etc etc etc. I know buckets of people like that. Airsofters are generally “fringe” people and in numbers not that common. Thus we will always be reviled by the newspapers as a minority; something that is always reported as a character flaw above all others. We are different, they say, so we must be wrong. Like all good gossip and sensational reporting, the number one maxim is “there is no smoke without fire”. “She must have done something…”, is something I have heard many times. The last time was the Brazilian bloke shot on the tube; “He shouldn’t have run from the police… He must have done something, he must have had something to hide…” Yeah, he was late for his fucking train.
In my opinion, and following on from Blair’s point in his speech yesterday, the media are guilty and complicit in the building of an inference without any factual basis. They no longer “report” the news, they now comment on the motives. Motives are almost impossible to ascertain, but that never stops them from making them up. And the common man believes them. So all French become frogs, all famous people are special, all politicians are conspiring liars and all people carrying BB guns are a danger to the children and must be put down by our trigger happy police farce.
Basho
