The Airsofter's Journey: Part the Oneth

Let me begin by saying that I am not very much of a war-supporter. In fact I am basically anti-war. As such I frequent such sites as this one. This sometimes garners reproach from my friends.

"What?" They say in reprimand. "You're anti-war? You must be against stopping the terrorists! You must be against the second amendment!", they continue, "You must be a Democrat!". Well shoot, if being anti-war is left, I don't want to be right! No in fact, being anti-war does not mean shunning self-defense and supporting universal healthcare, it simply means that you are a sane person. I would be in fact much disturbed were I to encounter a person who was in fact pro-war. I would recoil in horror!

"What!" I would say in reproachful tones. "You're pro-war? You must be for preemptive strikes! you must be for interventionism! You must be... well now, you must be a Republican!" To which we would both doubtless stomp off in our respective directions, our opinions of each other greatly diminished as a result of this small ideological exchange.

And so having cleared up this little misunderstanding, I now move to the result of my anti-war sentiments: Airsoft. Airsoft is a fast-growing sport in the States that involves firing small bb's at other people. A popular definition of airsoft is as follows:

" Airsoft; A sport in which underdeveloped, socially deficient teenagers who are too chicken to join the real military live out their fantasies by firing little white things that couldn't hurt a small bird at each other, thinking (somehow) that this makes them tough and cool."

But you say to yourself "This is inconsistent! How can you be anti-war, yet play war games? a contradiction!" Nay fair reader... consider the following syllogism;

A) The Editor is Anti-war.
B) War involves killing people.
C) Therefore, Airsoft is cool.

If you have difficulty grasping this, I humbly submit that the problem is yours, not mine. And so having been introduced to this sport by my friends, and being a socially deficient teenager myself, I was drawn to it. "Yes!" I thought to myself. "Now I can look like I'm tough without having to be tough... kind of like that one band they're always playing!" This was in fact one of several reasons I was first drawn to the activity... the other reasons being:

-During Airsoft a mask is worn the whole time. This minimizes the amount of time you have to actually converse with other people, trying to think of witty dialogue then regressing into an awkward silence, and maximizes the amount of time you can shoot at them.

-If I was mad at someone, I could just invite them to play Airsoft with me! Then once we were out on the field, I could pull some "accidental" friendly fire moves! "Woops!" I would say. "My bad!"

And so armed with my syllogism, my underdeveloped biceps, my three awesome reasons for Airsofting, and about $40 ("Surely this will be enough." I thought), I headed to my nearest Airsoft retailer...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This post does not conform to RFCN's Truthfulness standards. This post contains certain amounts of truth combined with what Stephen Colbert has coined "Truthiness".