As I mentioned yesterday, this weekend was set to see us shooting each other with Airsoft weaponry. And indeed that is how we spent a healthy proportion of the day.

I haven’t done Airsoft before today, but it’s a lot of fun. A big part of the appeal is the fact that the weaponry involved is very realistic — most of the guns available are based on real-life guns to varying degrees and thus must be painted bright orange so as to not get the participants arrested. The gun I got was modelled closely on a Beretta and made entirely of metal, so had a pleasing amount of heft to it and a satisfying degree of kickback when fired. It made a great noise too.

I haven’t fired guns on many occasions in my life but it’s an oddly thrilling experience. I recall in the first week of university several of us decided to try going along to a trial session of the Rifle Club. It was a lot of fun but also had an element of danger — the instructors repeatedly reminded us that firing the gun at the floor would probably kill us. Scary.

More recently, I’ve done paintballing a few times. Paintball is good fun, but the weaponry isn’t particularly realistic. It really, really fucking hurts when you get hit, though. And you get a lot of the satisfaction of crawling around in the undergrowth and shooting at far-off enemies.

Games such as paintball and Airsoft give you a good insight into what soldiers must go through on a regular basis. It makes me feel like I most certainly couldn’t be in the army. I’m sort of fine with that — although it’s fun to fire these fake guns, I imagine it would be absolutely terrifying to fire a real one that could actually kill someone.

Anyway. It is late so I am feeling the call of bed.