Airsofting: There's nothing SOFT about it!
About five years ago, my former next door neighbor got me hooked on airsofting. For those of you that don't know what that is, well it involves guns, ranging from pistols to battery powered semi-automatics to shotguns and even guns that look like AK-47s. The ammo is hard plastic pellets or BBs. And when you get hit, well you'll know all about it. And unless you stupidly shoot yourself at point-blank-range, the fired ammo will only leave little red welts that will disappear in a day or two. And before you ask, shooting yourself at point-blank-range will do enough damage to break the inner layer of skin to create a blood blister. I know what that's like; don't ask!
This is one of the few recreational things I like to do. Whenever I airsofted, I only did it for target practice, scaring away critters such as raccoons (That will be another story. I promise!), and on the rare occasion, shoot-outs with my friends. I wasn't the type of person that actively ran around and hunted down my friends participating in the skirmish. Instead, I'd hide out in a bush or take cover behind a tree or other forms of protection from flying BBs and wait for the target objectives to come to me. So in short, I was a guerrilla warfare type of marksman. What I like about airsofting with my friends is that safety was always number one: Everyone had to wear eye-protection (The flying BBs CAN potentially blind you if it hits your unprotected eye. So kids, don't do this at home unless you've got the proper equipment to make this safe!). Another thing is that we fought in teams so there was no odd man out at ANY time.
When airsofting, it's best to do so when there's a lot of space AND where there's no concerns of possibly angry neighbors. I remember one time I airsofted with two other friends in a friend's back yard IN a residential neighborhood. One of the neighbors almost called the cops for the noise we were making. I've airsofted in three separate occasions:
1.) A wooded area with lots of cover.
2.) A friends backyard in the evening hours (not really a good idea!)
3.) A friends backyard with 5 acres of land with little to no ideal cover.
One of the most memorable airsofting experiences I had was my second time in my friend's backyard. There was this scenario called "The Rogue". Basically there was an odd man out considering that there was only three of us. The rogue was given eye-protection, a plastic sword and shield and no gun. I mean how fair is that?! Once they flank you, you're as good as dead! So when I became the rogue, I was able to evade my friends for a good amount of time by hiding out in a bush in the front yard. When I realized that I had to make my move sooner or later, I just figured I might as well end it by letting one of my friends finish me off. But before you start saying anything, yes, I wasn't going without a fight. But I ended up being chased back into the backyard and faced down the barrels of two pistols, one from the front and one from behind. And this is where my friends got all cold-hearted: They got trigger happy!!! I felt one shot get me square on the back, one from the front hit me in the left shoulder, another from behind hit me in the back of my left leg! The final two shot just topped off the epicness of my samurai-style downfall: A shot from the front hit me in the left arm and my friend from behind shot me just feet away from me in the butt!!! He shot me in the butt!!!!! Never in my airsofting career, I had that many bullets hit me in just one skirmish. So you could say I was brutally massacred! But we had fun anyways.
Got questions? Got comments? Got sympathy for me? You know the drill! I am all ears for your comments!
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