From 2013 to 2019 it was illegal to own paintball guns in Malaysia

INTRO:

- Trivia about how PB guns were used for marking trees and cows

- But did you know also know from 2013-2019, they were considered firearms in Malaysia

- Made it very complicated for the industry

HEADER 1 (Pre-2013):

- PB industry was booming and the sport was popular

- Biggest community in SEA/ASIA

- There were a lot of parks

HEADER 2 (2013):

- PDRM declared PB guns as firearms and fell under purview of the Arms Act (AA)

- So the same rules with real guns applied to PB guns

- Needed licence to own one and needed licence to operate a park. FYI; parks needed to have a legit ARMOURY to store PB guns

- Made it difficult for industry and enthusiasts

HEADER 3 (CYBERJAYA RAID):

- PDRM raided park in Cyber to seize the PB guns. This sparked the litigation in court.

- In court they argued PB guns shouldnt fall under AA

- E.g even if you have gun licence it doesn’t mean you can shoot people for sport. PB guns on the other hand is meant for shooting peeps.

- Argued AA for lethal guns, PB guns aint lethat

- Also when the AA was enacted, it was before PB guns existed. So the purpose of AA couldnt be to regulate PB guns.

- It was also argued that PB guns weren’t imitation guns, because they didn’t look like real guns.

- The court agreed with PB fellas

HEADER 4 (NOT MUCH CHANGED):

- The items seized were not returned to the park

- A PB fair was banned 

- Terrorism

- PB guns doesn’t cause death

The best way to have a real life Call Of Duty experience without getting shot by real bullets, is probably at a paintball match. For those who don’t know, paintball is a game where people shoot each other with um paintballs – but given how popular this sport is, you probably already knew this.

What you wouldn’t have known is, how the PDRM made it difficult for Malaysians to play paintball in Malaysia – and they did that by classifying paintball guns (they’re known also as paintball markers in the paintball community) as firearms. Yupp that means that in Malaysia, there wasn’t a difference between a paintball marker firing paint pellets and an M-16 rifle firing full metal jacket 5.56mm bullets.

To find out more about how and why the PDRM did this with regards to paintball markers, we got in touch with someone from the Malaysian Paintball Federation and a lawyer who challenged the PDRM in court on this issue.

Before 2013 the paintball industry made a splash

To add some paint colour to the black and white, we talked to Tengku Alizan who’s the Deputy President of the Malaysian Paintball Federation. According to him, paintball was a growing sport in Malaysia. In fact, Malaysia was considered the paintball hub in the region. Following the picture Tengku Alizan painted for us, it was easy to walk in to a paintball park and play a game. 

We also found out that the games were so fun with enthusiasts wearing camouflage during the games. Oh and he also insisted that it shouldn’t be called paintball games, but they can roughly be defined into 2 definitions or type of games:

• recball/woodsball: A paintball match with the venue being in a jungle. The players use the trees and natural for cover.
• speedball: A paintball match in an “artifical setting”. Usually there’d be inflatable structures present for the players to use as cover

2013 came

2013 was an eventful year for Malaysia, Lahad Datu was invaded by Filipino militants, we had a general election...and the PDRM decided to classify paintball markers as firearms.

If you don’t find that weird, it’s probably because they sorta kinda look like and shoot projectiles (paintball pellets) like firearms. But here’s where it gets complicated. When the PDRM classified paintball markers as firearms, these items fell under the jurisdiction of the Arms Act 1960.

That’s a problem for a number of reasons.

First people can’t simply buy and own paintball markers anymore. They need a licence similar to those for normal firearms. According to Section 3 of the Arms Act, possessing a firearm is illegal in Malaysia, unless a licence is obtained for it. 

As it is the getting a firearm licence in Malaysia is already close to impossible, Commissioner Zulkifli said that the PDRM would not entertain firearm application licences for paintball markers. But we also heard that possibly there’s a way to own a paintball marker, it’s just that you can keep it with you – you’d have to keep it in a paintball park. 

The second problem was only paintball parks were allowed to own paintball markers, but they still had to apply for a licence to own them. In addition to that, once the paintball parks obtained their licence, they couldn’t simply chuck their markers around – they had to keep them in armouries similar to where PDRM and the army keeps their firearms.

And this seemed abit overkill, because according to Tengku Alizan paintball weapons can’t kill.

A Cyberjaya paintball park was raided

So as you can see, the decision by the PDRM to include paintball markers into the purview of the Arms Act made it a bummer for the paintball industry and enthusiasts. But according to Tengku Alizan the community did not stay quiet. There were attempts by them to negotiate this decision with the PDRM and Ministry of Home Affairs. 

But what started the spark to challenge the PDRM in court, was the raid and seizure of paintball items by the PDRM at a paintball park in Cyberjaya. That event resulted in a judicial review action to challenge the definition in court, and their legal arguments were spearheaded by Fahri Azzat. 

When we asked Fahri Azzat about how he handled the case in court, he told us a few reasons why paintball markers shouldn’t fall under Arms Act.

His first argument was, Section 2 of the Arms Act defines an “arm” as two upper limbs of the human body from the shoulder to the hand a lethal barrelled weapon which can discharge projectiles – and um paintball markers aren’t lethal.

Secondly, he also argued that from a historical perspective the Arms Act couldn’t have been made to include paintball markers. Because the Arms Act was passed as law in 1960, but paintball markers were made/used around 1970s – and it was used to mark trees and live stock in a herd. Thus the people who made and passed the Arms Act could only have envisioned paintball markers if they could look into the future.

Thirdly, Fahri also said that paintball markers can’t be considered to be imitating arms (you know how sometimes robbers use real-looking fake guns in robberies), because paintball markers look nothing like a real firearm and also it’s common enough for people to know that it’s a non-lethal paintball marker. But yeah do note that it is illegal to have toy/fake guns that look like real guns.

And Fahri’s case like a milkstool stood on these 3 arguments, and a strong milkstool it was because the court agreed with Fahri which also meant the paintball people won!

The result of the decision was that paintball markers aren’t considered arms as per the Arms Act, which means they no longer needed a licence to own one. And you’d think the paintball community will be firing paintball pellets in the air to celebrate, but….

The PDRM still hasn’t return the paintball markers

Unfortunately Fahri told us despite the court ordering the PDRM to return the paintball markers, they still haven’t done so. And in addition to that, Tengku Alizan also told us that the PDRM has also refused to allow a paintball company set up a booth at a fair; though he did also add that they’re waiting to get the copy of the court judgement to show the PDRM.

But all in all, it looks like future seems promising for the paintball community. It’s not difficult to agree with them, because these paintball markers can’t kill. So with the way the law is headed, the paintballers can paint the town red soon!