Growing up in mesa I
had the opportunity to befriend many school mates. One of which was Hunter
McNeil. He showed me just how much fun using air-soft guns can be. After
playing air-soft with him and a couple others in his neighborhood, I couldn't help getting one for myself. We started off with 2 pistols for Christmas and
used them to death. These 2 pistols inspired the friends of my neighborhood to
acquire their own. We soon had our own neighborhood of airsofters as well as
hunter’s neighborhood. It would have been nice to have brought those 2 groups
together but alas, things like that don’t work out as easily in a big city.
I still remember many
of the wars we had in my backyard and in the park nearby. I recall the desires
for better and bigger guns. Many of us had little pistols and one shot,
shotguns but the accuracy of those weapons soon began to be frustrating as
others acquired better weapons. When Christmas came around I couldn't help
putting on my wish list an automatic air-soft gun. To my surprise, we got just
that! My older brother Sam, Josh and I got to pick which one we wanted at a
shop just for air-soft guns. Sam got a Thomson automatic and josh and I got the
same MP5 automatic. They all ran on electricity. We used these guns like crazy
and instantly became on the top of the teams pick list. Sam’s Thomson
automatic, shot heavier bullets at 420 feet per second but only contained a
forty round clip. Our MP5’s shot either heavy or light bullets at 385 feet per
second but our clips had a 100 round clip with quick reload that allowed us to
reload with the clip in the gun. Needless to say, we weren’t worried about our
ammo in games. We had around 400 ready to go, but Sam walked around with 40
powerful shots. He had the strongest gun.
This caused a chain reaction with all of the
others. There were some who got automatics as well soon after our fame rose and
they too became more lethal on the field. After a year went by, we all had
worthy weapons and tactics for each type. Then my air-soft gun broke. A piece
of plastic on the inside broke causing the gun to become a prop for some of the
movies soon to come from our house. I couldn’t just drop down to a mere pistol
in our never ending wars. I had to make a comeback. So for my birthday, I found
myself with a very powerful, air-soft, bolt action sniper rifle. This rifle shot
one bb at 475 feet per second. This bb was so accurate that I gave it a scope
that is now being used for a real gun. I now was the most feared on the field
even though I could only get off one shot every second or two.
I still can recall some
of the games we played in the park. I remember the earlier games before people
recognized the power of the sniper. I had Robert Bunnell run out of a bush and
take down an ally of mine. He then began to run away and dodge my shots but I couldn't miss with this gun. I got him in the thigh the first shot and caused
him to bleed a little in his jeans. Needless to say, it scared like many of the
other welts that we gave each other.
Josh was always a witty
player and made the smart decisions not necessarily the fun ones like me. I was
the sniper who had one teammate with a pistol and one enemy with an automatic.
But this was not just any enemy. This was Josh, who would later be known for
his skills in games like this in the dark. He was in a corner full of condensed
bushes and I felt confident enough to walk right into it, calling him out to
battle. For by then I knew that my sniper instilled fear to any of those who
were in my close range KO shots. Josh on the other hand used reason instead of
fear. He sprinted past me with his automatic expressing itself all over me,
right as I got to a turn in the bushes. I didn't have a chance and neither did
my ally. He lit me up so bad and point blank range that I can still find some
of the scars on my arms.
Sadly I fear that the
games we played were dying down because of my sniper. So we had to begin
testing out new games. This sprung up a game called “ZOMBIES”. I still found uses for my sniper though. One
of which was when our neighbors were having a massive “Girls Sleepover”. I
noticed all of the racket outside and had josh check it out while I loaded my
20 shot clip for my bolt shot. I know it sounds bad but NO GIRLS WERE HURT IN
THIS MEMORY. My room had a window that would open onto the top of our backyard
balcony and made the perfect mounting spot to sight in all of the girls that
were on a trampoline, gathered in a circle. Of course they were gossiping and
talking about boys and crazy girl things. I had my fun eavesdropping but I
couldn’t help have it all come to a quick conclusion. I let off a shot just
above their heads. All of the chattering stopped at once for they all heard
that whistling of my bb and thought it was a real bullet. Then after about 2 to
3 seconds of complete silence, I heard Jakelle scream, “SOMEONE SHOT AT US!!!”
they all sprinted about as fast as I had ever seen them run into the house and
closed the blinds. I couldn’t help keeping that one a secret in the
neighborhood but I never knew just how many I would soon have to hold.
Jacob that is a funny story, even though the ending makes you sound a little bit like a creeper saying you eavesdropped on those girls conversation. Back before you moved here we would have air soft wars at Hulet all the time. We had someone, just like you, who had a really powerful gun and it did make things less fun. Well, it was only less fun if you were the one person who got completely lit up by him, but if you were successful in escaping his wrath then everything was okay. Anyways, we used to play almost every weekend until the people living near Hulet got scared and called the police on us. They showed up in the middle of a war and told us that we cannot have them in Holbrook. However, they never said anything about Woodruff so I think I found the site of our next war. You can only have your pistol if you come!
ReplyDeleteAh airsofting. Good times those were. I remember shooting up my friends out around the schools, until the cops decided that we were a menance to society. Some of the best times I remember having involved a plastic pellet drilling the side of my face. For instance, my grandfather took me and a few friends out once, and I had some like paintball pellets for my gun. They were like blood red, so I decided I was going to prank him with them. I was being silly and said to him “yeah these goggles are completely safe, watch!” I took a pistol loaded with these pellets and shot my goggles point-blank. I started screaming and what and when he looked at me my goggles had chunks of plastic all over and a nice big red spatter. Pretty sure he had a minor heart attack, but thats ok.
ReplyDeleteYour memories are so similar to what we did during the air soft revolution. I had spent mountains of money on several awesome automatic rifles that would all hover around 400-460 feet per second. I always did love going back to school after a night of intense war with my buds on the campus and seeing all of the brightly colored pellets litter the grounds. I can't believe that you didn't have problems with police in a big city like we did in this cruddy small town. I even had some of the cops come to the top of the mountain next to the high school claiming that people with "AK47s" next to a school is some sort of crime. It didn't help that 911 happened not too long before that.
ReplyDeleteo my gosh thats an amazing story. i have a few stories similar to that but never so pranky. the one time we actually did get the cops called on us. My brother, Sam had like 14 of his friends meet at a park and we played pretty hard core. our gun supply was short so we built cardboard riot shields for people with an o so abundant pistol. i happened to be one of them and i was holding up quite amazingly against 2 automatics between my shield and my tree. :) i did however get lit up after like a minute of defense. so they took me with them as a prisoner and that's when we found the battle field abandoned. so we ran to are cars coordinating to get back to my house with everyone else. i was chucked into the trunk with strangers. as we drove past the park, not even 10 seconds later, we saw around 4 cop cars with their lights on. they all went into the entrance and we all got to my house. It was there that we coordinated an assault on my sister's boyfriend. with 17 men with arms we hid in the cultasac and waited for his truck. and at the signal, we screamed charge! and tied him up on the street. sadly the one doing it was a little rusty on his square knots. :)
ReplyDeleteo and we should definantly have an airsoft party some time in woody! ill work try to work on that..