You never know when you will need to defend yourself; you always need to be alert and well prepared to defend yourself and your family. As such, non-lethal home defense is growing in popularity because it is effective. While firearms may be out of reach or maybe not your go-to defense equipment, are paintball guns good for self-defense?
Paintball guns are good for self-defense. They will quickly deter a threat without the worries and inherent dangers accompanied by storing firearms or machetes. As a self-defense tool, you can use it to shoot hard rubber, pepper spray, PVC nylon, and iron dust balls.
Throughout the rest of this article, you will learn how to use paintball guns for self-defense, what makes them good for self-defense, whether they can shoot rubber balls, and problems you may encounter when using them.
What Makes Paintball Guns Good for Self-Defense?
Self-defense essentially means to protect yourself when you are in harm’s way. So when there is a burglar at your home, the law allows you to practice self-defense even though you might end up killing or harming them. The use of paintballs is a good self-defense mode when you want to subdue or distract the attacker to give you enough time to call the police while keeping you and your family safe.
Using a paintball is effective self-defense when you aim at the right spots. This way, you can inflict sharp pain or a bruise on the attacker. Equally, if your paintball gun is made of aluminum, metal, or hard plastic, you can use it to hit your attacker if they’re close enough. Reducing their mobility and chances of causing harm to you by putting them down will give you ample time to get the cops there.
Paintball guns are advantageous because you can use different types of ammunition with them for self-defense.
Pepper spray balls, iron dust, PVC nylon, and hard rubber balls will work better than actual paintballs. They provide better defense during an attack because they inflict pain when accurately aimed.
How Paintball Guns Work
A paintball gun comprises different parts, and knowing its mechanics will help to understand how it works.
- The body is the gun’s central part containing the valve (that releases air), the bolt, and the trigger.
- The hopper is the part that stores the paintballs, or the kind of ammunition you’re using and sits above the body.
- The tank is usually filled with carbon dioxide or high-pressure air (HCA), which contributes to enhancing velocity for ammunition movement.
- The barrel is a long cylinder attached to the gun’s body and ammunition moves through it before entering free air.
This is what happens when you press the paintball trigger:
- When you press the trigger, a valve in the hopper opens to release ammunition into the body of the paintball gun from the hopper.
- In the body, a valve opens to release carbon dioxide or highly-compressed air into the gun’s barrel.
- Air moves through the barrel while carrying the ammunition with it.
- The ammunition then passes through the end of the barrel into the free air.
How to Use a Paintball Gun for Self-Defense
When defending yourself in a harmful situation, here are a few tips you can follow to make the most out of your paintball gun.
Aim at an Unprotected Area
Paintballs hurt the most when you’re not wearing protective gear. When there is a burglar at your home, aim for those uncovered body parts to disable them. It could be the arms, legs, stomach, or any part of the body with minimal clothing. If you are less confident about your aim, aim for larger muscle areas. However, you will probably encounter problems if the attacker has strong muscles, as your shot will not hurt as much.
Carefully consider the area you aim for because shooting and not hurting the attacker will not only blow your cover but also anger them. With this, they will be more aggravated to inflict pain on you; therefore, don’t just shoot your paintballs for the sake of shooting.
Aim for the Attacker’s Sensitive Areas
Other than aiming for unprotected body parts, aim for the sensitive areas. This includes the eyes, genitals, neck, and head. Hitting these areas will distract or disable the attacker for a few minutes or seconds, giving you ample time to take them down or call the authorities. Ensure your aim is accurate because these parts may not be easy to hit like other larger body parts.
Make Use of Harder Objects Instead of Paintballs
One of the best advantages of paintball guns is that you can use other kinds of ammunition. During a time of desperation, the last thing you want to do is shoot paintballs that will have minimal to no effect on the attacker. Instead, use harder objects such as rubber balls; otherwise, paintballs that burst on impact will only seem like a joke or mockery to the attacker, angering them even more.
Here is a video on the ultimate home defense package for paintball guns:
Can Paintball Guns Shoot Rubber Bullets?
No, paintball guns cannot shoot rubber bullets, and this is because they do not have the strength to push that kind of bullet. If you tried, it wouldn’t go as far as paintballs or other lighter ammunition like pepper spray balls. There are rubber bullet guns made specially to shoot rubber bullets.
Paintball guns, to fire rubber bullets, would require sharp compression to ignite the propellant. The problem is, paintball guns use simple air to propel paintballs into free air and lack firing pins for contact with the primer. You can only hope that the paintball gun’s air pressure will push the entire bullet together with its casing and projectile at a very slow speed.
Problems You Will Encounter When Using Paintball Guns for Self-Defense
Paintball guns can be used for self-defense, but remember they are mostly used for fun and not defense during a crime. Although you can use a particular kind of ammunition, it is not entirely built for such scenarios. In the face of danger, you will need mind strategy, speed, and mind to keep you safe, and paintball guns could easily let you down because of the following reasons:
Lack of Accuracy
Paintball guns are not perfect in that they lack accuracy. When coupled with poor aiming, you may miss your attacker and end up in an even worse situation. Whether you have a very expensive or standard paintball gun, they all work the same and are not as accurate as a real gun.
Low Strength
Paintball guns are not as strong as the standard gun. This is proven by the fact that they cannot shoot rubber bullets at high speed because of the simple air pressure. If you end up in combat with a burglar, your plastic paintball gun will not be of much use. Unless you invest in an aluminum paintball gun, it will not help you in a life or death situation.
Less Reliability
Attacks can happen anywhere, and you may not be readily equipped with your paintball gun. You will hardly carry it everywhere you go unless you have plans of playing paintball. Similarly, you will most likely have paintballs in the gun instead of other ammunition that would be more effective such as hard rubber balls and pepper spray balls.
At home, paintball guns can be useful for self-defense. However, during an outside attack, they can be very unreliable.
Final Thoughts
Paintball guns are a non-lethal and an excellent mode of self-defense during attacks. While they may not be as strong, accurate, reliable, and cannot shoot rubber bullets like standard guns, they can distract attackers, giving you enough time to combat the attacker and call the police. The best way to use paintball guns for self-defense is to aim for sensitive and unprotected areas and use hard objects such as hard rubber balls instead of paintballs.