Rules Committee Announcement
After the recent 2009 US Paintball League event in Las Vegas, the NPPL Rules Committee will be reviewing rule 23.07 penalties for Illegal Markers. The current rule is being changed as several teams were given a penalty for markers that fired multiple balls per trigger pull as a result of mechanical trigger bounce and NOT illegal electronic program modes. We are also going to create a standard procedure for the way that guns are checked for bounce. The rules committee has deemed this penalty to be too harsh of a penalty for the infraction of mechanical bounce. Therefore the rules committee will be creating a new rule where by the penalty for mechanical bounce will be less of an infraction. Rule 23.07 will remain only for illegal modes.
The teams affected by this rule in Las Vegas had mechanical bounce markers, not illegal modes. Therefore the rules committee has declared these teams that received the penalty at the Las Vegas event will not have to serve the suspension part of the rule in 2010 for a mechanical bounce violation.
Official statement from Chuck Hendsch Commissioner of the NPPL; “I spoke to many team captains and players over the weekend about the severity of Rule 23.07. The penalty fits and needs to be strict for players that have intentionally put cheating modes in their markers. The penalty is too harsh on players and teams that have a mechanical trigger failure or slight trigger bounce base on trigger adjustment. Although we can not reverse the rule that was applied in the 2009 Las Vegas event, we can make changes going forward. This is not the first time we have made adjustments to our rules after an event and I am confident the rules committee along with Dan Perez will come up with a good solution for the 2010 season.” The rules committee is also going to examine and modify the rules regarding overshooting and markers being thrown.
