[Joe]

The point I'm trying to make here is that there is more to gun ownership than being able to hit a target. What is needed is *discipline*, and a whole lot of it. As a gun owner you will be held to a higher standard than someone else, because you will be responsible for making snap life-or-death decisions during times of stress.

One of those decisions may be to determine if you have been assaulted with a weapon or a toy. If you cannot tell a paintball gun from a real gun, may I suggest some additional firearms safety classes and maybe some time on a paintball range getting shot with paintballs. That way when some complete idiot shoots you with a toy gun in a spasm of stupidity, your first instinct isn't a panicked "Oh my god, I've been shot!" but rather a much calmer "That was a paintball", and let your actions follow from there. It is perhaps unrealistic to suggest to an American to make this distinction, since it takes a whole lot less mental effort to simply say "I thought it was a real gun, so I killed the him to be on the safe side".

Life, or death.

You might also ask yourself how you're going to feel afterwards if you a)killed the paintball idiot to be on the safe side or b)managed to keep your gun in your pocket through the whole incident without anyone even knowing you had one.

I know my argument isn't going to work, that if someone shoots you with a paintball gun from a moving car, making it look every bit like a drive-by shooting, that you will probably kill the shooter. I'm just making a case to avoid tragedy, since kids do some really dumb things in their adolescent years. It is perhaps unrealistic to hope that someone more mature might be able, in a split second, to do enough thinking for two people at once, and save the day.