Due to this inane diatribe, I start thinking how utterly annoying he was being (not just because he was preaching to the converted or anything) but because he sounded like some television evangelist bent on attaining my salvation (with or without my direct participation).
During his mindless pre-rehearsed monolog I soon came to see that he reminded me of my neighbour’s dog who only howls at three o’clock in the morning. I'm also reminded how I’d love to strangle the life out of the beast. However, it’s illegal. Not to mention it’s a one hundred and fifty pound trained attack dog. I refrain from getting mad at the dog mainly bacause it's not the dog’s fault he gets left outside. So even though it’s a pleasant and warming thought to strangle my neighbour (when thought of in a pure and bloodless manner) it really doesn’t solve the problem.
Getting back to the point (and I do have one). I listen politely to this gibbering moron and (between fantasies of strangling the breath out of this boorish buffoon and slapping the snot out of his parents for even THINKING of giving birth to this slavering simpleton) I realize that he’s taking the same holier-than-thou attitude about stock class that I used to take. It’s really not based on any fact but on some sort of prolonged hallucinatory episode and he’s spouting off how stock is the Great Equalizer.
This concept makjes sense until you really think about it. Once you see the error in the logic you then cannot (if you have any conscience whatsoever) spout this crap to anyone (with even the smallest capability to reason). This is of course if you're also willing to also state that a custom-made stockgun from Carter Machine or Palmer’s Pursuit is equal to a standard Nelspot or a Splatmaster -- which is not the truth. As my grandfather said -- “a cat born in the oven is still not a cake” (whatever that means).
He then goes on to say that it’s a great way to introduce newbies to the game. I once thought the same way. If you look at it at face value it does make sense. Think about it. If you argue that stock is a game of skill you also have to accept the fact that newbies don't have any skill. That’s when you'll realize (like I did) why you don’t see the typical "I’m-a-newbie-and-I-got-bashed" letter in the magazines anymore. Newbies get semis now and can more or less hold their own with the liberal application of paint. The days of newbies cutting their teeth on a pumpgun are gone (along with the two dollar haircut and job security and getting your mail in a reasonable amount of time).
I realize that stock class is the best venue to "bash squids” that there ever will be (until the end of time and a few months beyond). This is because with newbies who have no clue what to do (and not even having the benefit of firepower make up for their lack of skill) a stock class game is a perfect way for experienced players to crush these unfortunate brutes under the Heavily Treaded Boot Heel of Advanced Expertise.
When you really think about it (in a emotionally detatched and rational manner) stock class is a big roaring pain in the butt. You have to reload every ten to twenty shots. You have to change those bloody twelve grams. Let’s not forget moving (and the inevitable running) which is all very fine if you’re under twenty and have the stamina of an Olympic athlete. I’m over forty and have knees that fold like the legs on a cheap card table if I so much as scamper. Just between me, you and the fence post -- sometimes I’d much rather hunker down behind some adequate cover and hose my opponents until I get cramps in my hand and I am forced to use my middle finger if it’s all the same to you.
I’m not nineteen years old anymore and I can’t run like a prized thoroughbred racehorse. Due to this painful realization I make up for it by spending money on a hyper-tuned stockgun that cost upwards of five hundred dollars. This, incidentally, defeats the original purpose of why stock was established. Stock started because players were tired of the types of players who could dominate the game (not because of their skill) because they could afford to buy the top-of-the-line kit and had the bank accounts and disposable income to be able to shoot obscene amounts of paint.
So now I realize that I have become what I despised the most (a techno-junkie) and I am not willing to make apologies for it. I’m not a young man anymore. What’s worse if I continue to perpetuate the inane prattlings on how stock is paintball in it’s most immaculate form (while carrying a five-hundred dollar stockgun) I’m just being a big fat hypocrite.
In my sudden moment of lucidity then I ask myself “what was I thinking” when I wrote articles suggesting that players should use stockguns during a semi game (in order to help improve their skills). While I realize the theory is sound (more challenge equals more effort and more effort equals better skill). When you think realistically, the cold hard reality of the situation is that if you don’t have a semi you are going to get pummelled for your troubles.
I've been playing for over fifteen years and I can hold my own with a pump on semi day. However if you don't have that kind of experience you have to be somewhere between slightly delusional and barking mad to think that bringing a stockgun into a semi game is going to get you anything but more welts for your efforts.
If you have the perverse view that somehow the semi players are going to respect you (for your fortitude and stamina). In reality, they're pre-notching their guns and writing YOUR NAME on about two hundred and fifty paintballs. Listen, my friend, you’re not getting ”cool points” from these hosing paint pack mules -- you’re being assessed as the Easiest Kill Of The Day. They are not going to admire you or look back on your skill and determination as much as they are going to cackle like a bunch of crows in a corn field on how incredibly stupid you were. Years from now they’ll look at that day and remark “you remember that demented churl who played with the stockgun” and literally double over in fits of insane laughter at your utter absurdity.
All that aside and despite these painfully obvious facts: stock players are still preaching from the mount and taking every opportunity to stand up on their pathetic soap boxes and sing the praises of stock.
In all reality who in their right mind would give up the capability to shoot paint like there’s no tomorrow and have a tank that will give them two thousand shots and a loader that will carry more balls than they can count? (Without first having to remove their boots and socks). So they give this all up and play with a pump-action-tilt-feed facsimile of a museum piece that requires more attention than a newborn infant?
Let's not forget the one clear inescapable fact that players who have invested thousands of dollars in a semi and the gear to support the paint slinger are not about to toss away another few hundred for a stockgun and the subsequent gear required to support IT.
So the bottom line is if you don’t want to play stock then don’t and if you do play stock get down off of your high horse shut your slobbering pie-hole and go play.
All of the articles in the website "www.DURTYDAN.com" are free to use for webpages, school projects, reference and to promote paintball to players and the non-playing public. Please give
credit where credit is due and (where possible) provide a link back to the www.DURTYDAN.com
website.
© Durty Dan 2000. All rights reserved. All works contained in the website known as "www.DURTYDAN.com" are under copyright of the author Durty Dan. While the Terms of Use are broad they do not include the right to
republish this work in any publication (hardcopy or electronic) for the purposes of personal financial gain.
