Following the infamous Winnenden school massacre on March 11, 2009, in which a 17-year-old shot dead 15 people in the southwestern town in Germany, before killing himself, the German government has agreed to tighten gun laws. According to media reports,  random checks for gun owners will be implemented and paintball and laser tag will be banned.

This has lead to a debate erupting in the paintball and laser tag scene. Paintball is a sport in which players use air guns and rifles to shoot small paint pellets at opponents; whilst in laser tag, players wear vests with sensors and shoot at each other with an infrared-emitting gun.

“They simulate killing,” the deputy head of the conservative Christian Union parliamentary group, Wolfgang Bosbach, told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung.

“Paintball is immoral. It will no longer be allowed in the future,” said Dieter Wiefelspütz, the SPD’s spokesperson for home affairs in the Bundestag. “There’s a risk that these so-called games will play down the danger of violence and that it will erode barriers to committing violence.”

Meanwhile, Claudia Roth, the chairwoman of the Green Party, described the proposed tightening of weapons laws to SPIEGEL ONLINE as a “courage-less concession to the gun lobby.” Instead of banning large caliber guns in general, the coalition government has only managed to agree on a token ban on paintball.” The German media has reported that lawmakers are considering preventing people under the age of 18 from shooting high-caliber guns at target practice venues.

A political agreement is expected next week. Legislation would be required to be introduced by the end of May so that it could be voted on in both of Germany’s federal legislative chambers before the summer break in July.

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