Doing something monumentally stupid is not better than doing nothing.

As a reaction to the recent school shooting that left fifteen people dead, the German government has decided to ban paintball and laser tag, because the shooter enjoyed games.

“This so-called game plays down violence, leading to the danger that people have fewer inhibitions about shooting each other,” said Dieter Wiefelsputz, of the Social Democrats.

Owners of paintball arenas, which are already out of bounds for under-18s, said they felt they were easy targets in what opposition politicians have referred to as “populistic placebo politics”.

There’s no mention, that I can find, that there’s been any study to determine if there is even a correlation between paintball games and violent crime. A (relatively quick) Google search turns up no study that even seriously examined the topic. The same thing holds true for “laser shooting games” (Laser Tag). In other words, this is just a knee-jerk reaction because the German government wants to be seen to do something, even if what they’re doing is monumentally stupid.

Here’s a weird note of interest (of interest to me, anyway). Governments are well known for trying to prevent criminals from committing crimes by punishing law abiding citizens. For example, if my neighbor shoots someone, then the government may decide it’s a brilliant plan to outlaw my ownership of a gun. It makes no sense — he’s already proven the law doesn’t restrain him, so all they’re doing is punishing me — but they do it anyway. In this particular case, a 17-year-old, who (apparently illegally) enjoyed playing paintball (the linked article mentions that it’s illegal in Germany for individuals under the age of 18), illegally obtained weapons (by stealing them from his dad), and used them to illegally kill a number of people. The response of the German government is to make paintball illegal for everyone, and they’re taking some flack for not making guns illegal for everyone.

This kid was already breaking a number of laws. Making more things illegal was not going to prevent him from committing crimes. All it does is punish the law abiding.

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