I have played a lot of paintball in the past 16+ years, which has given me a number of opportunities to accidentally over-shoot other players, or shoot a player after he's been eliminated. I always make an effort to apologize. That's because not once in that whole time have I ever shot anyone just to be a jerk, or because I wanted to hurt someone, or teach them a lesson, or whatever other imaginary intent is often read into such incidents. Every single time it has been an honest mistake. Maybe I didn't (or couldn't) see the player's hand go up, or the surrounding noise drowned out the sound of the player yelling "hit". But in the mass confusion that paintball games can sometimes be, honest mistakes can happen despite our best efforts to the contrary.

The question I have is why do so many players automatically assume that such incidents happen out of malice? Why do so many people first and foremost go straight to the assumption that the act was intentional on the part of the opposing player? So many times it seems the "victims" in these incidents immediately get angry, yell obscenities and even threaten physical violence as a response, before giving any benefit of the doubt at all to the shooter.

I suppose some of that response is generated in the heat of the moment. Maybe the physical pain of an over-shooting, or disappointment of being eliminated at a crucial point of the game induces a type of reflex response, which in a lot of cases subsides after a few minutes. But many times I have seen players who are still carrying the response after the game or even days later. I have seen players who swear the other team over-shot them just out of meanness or other malicious intentions.

Does this happen as often as people think? No doubt there are hot heads who might have an axe to grind and purposely over-shoot opponents. The world is made up of all types of people, and the bigger the crowd, the higher percentage of hot heads you're likely to find. But in my experience, these people are few and far between, and often turn out to be the type of people who simply don't belong in recreational or scenario paintball anyway (but that's a different discussion). I personally have known a lot of players over the years, and I can't think of a single one of them who will waste any more paint and time than it takes to get an opponent off the field. I can't think of any of them who go on the field with the attitude of wanting to hurt someone. If you believe what most people say, statistically speaking, the chances that you'll run across someone who is an intentional over-shooter should be relatively low.

To be fair, some people tend to be rather careless about when they pull the trigger on field. I have seen inexperienced players who were quick to unload on anything that moves and ask questions later. But even those mistakes are not born of malicious intent as much as a sense of panic or over-enthusiasm. Most players eventually grow out of such over-reacting, especially those of us who pay for our own paint.

In some cases the eliminated player himself can even be blamed for not removing himself from the field of play fast enough, or for not indicating in a unmistakable manner that he is already eliminated. An example; I once saw a player on my team disgustingly mumble something about being hit and get up from behind his cover to walk off. At that point the other team let him have it. He turned around and started yelling at them about already being out, and I said "hey buddy, they didn't know you were out because you never told them. It's not their fault". And for that, he made some remark to me about, "They could see I was walking the other way. They're just a bunch of ******". Apparently, rather than consider the mistake was his own, it was more comforting to stick with the original idea that the other team had lit him up just out of meanness. He took the incident very personally, and automatically applied the same attitude to the people who had shot him. But to the guys on the other team it wasn't personal. They can't read minds. They simply saw a player leave cover, and did what paintball players do.

In scenario games over the past few years I have noticed a definite trend to control incidents of over-shooting on the part of players. It is not uncommon at all to hear players on one side yelling to their team mates "he's out, let him out" in an effort to stop everyone from firing at an eliminated opposing player. They understand that not everyone has the same vantage point and can't immediately tell one of the opponents across the woods has called himself out. It is a commendable effort, and serves to prove that many players in fact have no interest in seeing someone get over-shot.

It's obvious that some players take getting overshot too personally, but I tend to think laziness plays a part as well. After all, it's easy to get mad. It's much easier to ignore your own mistakes and put the blame on someone else. And it's always much easier to assume malicious intentions on the part of someone you only know as a random figure on the other team - those guys over there.

At the same time part of the problem seems to stem from people's expectations, or lack thereof. If you are playing in a scenario game with hundreds of players, there is always a chance that at some point you are going to get hit more than you'd like. As a matter of fact, that chance exist in all forms of paintball (even with pump guns), and there is no way to legislate it away. The very nature of the game demands that people make their best attempts to land paint on each other. How many times do you fire a single shot and wait to find out if it broke before adding a follow up shot? No one else does that either (snipers excepted). If you're not prepared for the eventuality that you'll be over-shot, maybe you should consider golf.

On the other hand, if you enjoy paintball, then take it for what it is. It is a game in which things happen fast and perfection is hard to find. It is a game made fun by the fact that other people choose to participate along with you. Those people, for the most part, are just like you. They want to have fun and they want to be successful, but their goals do not include intentionally causing you pain. Before you go ballistic from any incident, try putting yourself in the other guy's shoes for a few seconds. Give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he made an honest mistake, before you automatically assume the worse.