In what probably is a misguided way of avoiding gun violence, gangs in U.S. cities are resorting to paintball markers. According to Vice News, the #PaintballsUpGunsDown movement started in April of this year in Detroit in which gangs are asked to use paintball markers rather than guns. The hashtag began spreading in social media and has caught on to other cities such as Atlanta.

In the Vice News report, the founder of the movement, Quinton Kisor, said, “Everywhere you go you would see a gun, but now when we started paintballing, everywhere we went we’d see a paintball.” He further adds that, “I’d rather get hit with a paintball than a bullet.”

In a way, it is a good development as gangs set aside their guns and other dangerous paraphernalia to wage gang wars and pick up paintball markers which are less dangerous to use. In the video shown in the report, the two gangs mentioned forgot the beef they had in the past and they just have paintball wars to have fun. These paintball wars happen in city streets sometimes involving 50 shooters which are actually big for a paintball street fight.

Whilst the effort is laudable, the police are concerned as some of the paintball markers can be mistaken for firearms and since these paintball wars take place in streets rather at paintball fields, police may just shoot someone who is holding a paintball gun. In airsoft, this actually happens as there have been cases in which young people get killed carrying airsoft guns in public, the most prominent was the Tamir Rice case. Another is damage to property as paintball will splatter walls with paint or even break windows with thin glasses. Gang members still risk injuring themselves as they do not wear eye protection as shown in the video. What is also worrying is that bystanders and pedestrians will get caught in the crossfire when a paintball battle takes place in the street that they can be hit with paintballs too.

Authorities would prefer that gang members do their paintball wars in proper paintball fields. But if these paintball wars would help bring the murder rate in their cities down then they might just turn a blind eye. Now, they can only hope that they tire of paintball and move to another an even more competitive activity such as basketball.

Police in Detroit have started arresting gang members for destruction of property. But the paintball wars would continue on as they would rather clean up paint rather dragging dead bodies. Airsofters may just hope that gangs stick to paintball rather than pick up airsoft as airsoft looks like the real thing as compared to paintball markers. That could lead to big trouble to police if they start using airsoft guns for the “safe” gang wars.