Well, maybe Sprawl-Mart and Crappy Tire will catch some flak for this. I think the best we could hope for is they're forced to take the no sales to under 18 seriously.

Sad to read this. Parents really gotta be careful with this stuff. Canadian Tire and Walmart should seriously have an ACTUAL age restriction. On one occasion, ive gone to a Canadain Tire and seen a 12 year-old buy one.. like jeez...

Ever the idiot. I drive a car just fine. Hell, I have more driving certifications now than I did when I lost my eye. The only certification I lost when I lost my eye was air brakes for some weird reason. And all I had to do to get it back was run down to the motor vehicle office and rewrite the exam, which I did a couple weeks later.
I also play airsoft just fine with the one eye. I don't have to worry about closing the bad one, which actually makes shooting much easier. Even my range scores at work went up, and I have to fire backwards to what I'm used to now. You live, you learn, you move on.
Sure it's tragic to hear this kid's down an eye now. Hopefully this will serve as a warning to others, and with any luck cause some sort of regulation to be enacted. The parents however should be beaten profusely.

It could be a case of inappropriate marketing. Clearsoft has the appearance of being a toy yet it evidently outputs enough muzzle energy to cause ocular damage. They're cheap and they come in bright glossy boxes which aren't always behind lock and key.

Back in my day, spring powered guns which shot rubber darts or pellets were so underpowered they wouldn't pierce bond paper consistently at point blank.
They were pretty useless for skirmishing, but they were safe for players who weren't thoughtful enough to wear eye protection.

Evidently 9yr olds are not typically responsible enough to protect their eyes. They do not have the consistent capacity to understand that the eye is much more vulnerable to damage than the rest of the body which is why even paintball is not marketed to 9yr olds.

Someone made a mistake marketing clearsoft to children. When eye damaging incedents become frequent you can easily blame the parents, but at some point you have to accept the situation that parents may not be fully aware of what their offspring do and protect the end user directly. Manufacturers and distributers have a duty of care in protecting a wide range of society. Not just the 80 percentile of people writing the responsibility test of life.

Bullshit. It's a parent's job to be aware of what their children are doing.

I'm not saying that it's ok for parents to be irresponsible. I'm pointing out that when a problem becomes common, a company has to take steps to protect their consumer.

For instance, green gas cans are not DOT certified. They do not meet the requirements for the safe storage of propane. DOT regs require that disposable containers meet rigorous structural standards so they can do things like not blow up if you forget them in the trunk of your car on a hot summer day.

Notionally we can say it's stupid to leave a can of propane in a hot car trunk, but the fact remains that we transport stuff frequently in car trunks in the summer and that it's not hard to forget stuff in the trunk of your car. Therefore it becomes upon the onus of the gas bottler to contain their products in containers which can withstand a forseeable amount of abuse in order to protect society when practical. DOT cans can generally handle a hot car trunk. Green gas cans can't. If you blow up a can of gas in your hot car trunk, it's your fault for forgetting to store your gas properly. It's also the bottlers fault for not protecting their customer from a reasonably forseeable situation especially when it's quite possible to do so (i.e. steel can with overpressure relief valve).

In extension, it is important for airsoft marketers to market their product appropriately and clearly advise the the buyers of their product.

Ha ha. Were you testing and anilizing stuff back then too Karl?

Well, play with something that has the potential to harm after being warned and leaving children unsupervised = poor ass parenting. Blame mom not the the tool. Probably was mom who bought the damn thing to stop little jonny from squealing in the store.

No sympathy here...

i work as a canadian tire as a cashier and ever time i see a crap-shof i ask to see ID. no matter what.

the kid in the picture is holding a green crapBB so it's probably from there

i love how there is a buyairsoft.ca google add right underneth the article

Hmm. After reading that I kinda blame the parents and the kids, for the following reasons:
A: The parent was stupid or ignorent enough to buy a VERY young child an airsoft gun. And did not make sure he wore goggles.
B:The kid didn't put on goggles like an idiot, maybe he thought for some reason tiny pellets couldn't be worse than paintballs.

I dunno it just seems very stupid in my opinion. Seems like one of those things where it could have been prevented by not buying the gun for a minor in the first place.

This is true. It is also black and white. They gray area here which is also worth consideration, using your avatar as an example - Is the Fast Food restaurant responsible for making the kid fat? Not on a meal for meal basis. But, if restaurants that trade in food high in fats are going to advertise that their food is all you need to eat for breakfast, lunch and supper (and that its a great place for kids) then at some point it becomes that restaurants responsibility to accept their role in a nation of fat kids. We've seen MacD's and others accept their roles by modifying the types of foods and cooking ingredients used. Not everyone reads the label to make sure what they eat is good for them, its sad, but its true.

In concluding and to tie it back up with airsoft - is it Canadian Tires or Crossmans fault Billy lost an eye? Not on a case for case basis. But, if these potentially dangerous items are made to look like toys, distributed all too often to children and these injuries become commonplace enough that optamologists band together, there needs to be a rethink on the part of the producer on how these items are marketed and distributed so that they are more highly respected by the consumer for what can become of them if used improperly.

Er, no. Next you're going to tell us that pencils cause spelling mistakes.

May be, but it boils down to the individual's responsibility to take care of themselves. McDonalds doesn't make you fat. YOU make you fat...

I have to agree with Ibby. It's the consumer's responsibility to look out for his/her own self provided the retailer (be it crapsoft or fast food or whatever) has taken all necessary measures to warn the user of the potential consequences.

I understand what you're saying Pirate, but by that logic it's not a stretch to say it's Chrysler's fault when buddy in his Cirrus doesn't buckle up because Chrylser made it so the car can be driven with the seatbelt unbuckled.

I call accidents like these a tax on stupidity. Unfortunetly in this case it was the child that had to pay for the parent's lack of mental processing ability.