Paintball Markers in Singapore

My two cents on private ownership of markers in Singapore

As much as I emphatise with everyone's dreams of wanting to own their own marker in Singapore – I don't foresee it happening anytime soon. There are just too many factors that prevents private ownership from happening.

It is due to world politics and security- with terrorist threats and a suspected terrorist walking out of prison etc. That act of one guy walking out just makes things all that much harder for markers to be accepted as a 'sport equipment'.

We all know that markers are considered as fire arms- ok that’s a given.

What most paintballs don't know is that the authorities won't know the difference between a speedball marker and a recball marker. It is hard to differentiate between the two types of markers and only paintballers who are familiar with markers can tell the difference. The ordinary cop of the street or the customs officer wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

Milsim markers are designed to be 'realistic' this thus poses a huge problem for all paintballers. To avoid any misinterpretations- all markers – speedball or recball are lumped into the firearm category.

The crux of the matter is that recball milsim scene is preventing the allowance of private ownership of markers. It is simply too much to expect the authorities to bother to work out the differences between a speedball and a recball marker. And the milsim recball scene is totally underground which makes things all that much harder to legitimize that area of paintball. I wouldn’t call scenario a “sport” because its not.

Because of the kiasu mantra in civil service - no one in authority wants to take the chance and open up policy to categorise markers as a "sport equipment". No one wants to be responsible for some markers that might turn out to be real guns - much less a marker that ends up being used for 'other' purposes.

So I guess you are stuck with this situation for the time being.

The ironic thing is that it is much easier to get a firearm license and own a handgun in Singapore than in Malaysia.

It’s a case of “Malaysia Boleh” and “Singapore Tak Boleh”
(until Singapore sees that Malaysia is making a lot of money out of it- like Formula 1)