Drizzt
Member
National Post (Canada)
June 7, 2003 Saturday National Edition
SECTION: Review; Commentary: At the American Shooters Supply and Gun Club; Pg. A28
LENGTH: 688 words
HEADLINE: Shooting the breeze in Las Vegas: By the time the clip was empty, I felt invigorated, manly
SOURCE: National Post
BYLINE: Jonathan Kay
BODY:
The business model at the American Shooters Supply and Gun Club in Las Vegas is encapsulated in its logo: a mustachioed man with aviator sunglasses bursting through a Stars and Stripes background, a massive revolver brandished in his outstretched hands. Walk in, hand over your credit card, and you get to become that guy.
I had never before touched a handgun, let alone fired one. But the American Shooters staff was untroubled by my ignorance. At the rental counter, the manager merely asked me to sign a waiver declaring I was not "suffering from depression or mental illness." He then handed me a 9mm Glock 19 pistol, delivered a two-minute presentation on how to use it and directed me to the firing range.
Most of my fellow shooters were gruff-looking locals who had brought their own guns -- duffle bags full of them in some cases -- and seemed to exude a reassuring air of expertise. But other shooters were like me: pop-eyed foreign tourists looking for a thrill. While loading my gun, I made nervous chatter with the guys in the next firing lane -- British 30-somethings who immediately turned the conversation over to griping about restrictive European gun laws.
I took my first shot with my eyes closed, my head turned away, and my arms locked tight. The result was a small hole in the left arm of the silhouette target. (I'd placed it only seven yards away -- the minimum distance permitted by the range.) My fear dissipated and I began working through the magazine. By the time the clip was empty, I felt invigorated and manly.
I had taken the Glock because it is considered a simple gun for beginners. But on the wall display behind the rental counter, there were far more exotic specimens to choose from, including an AK-47 assault rifle, a .44 Magnum revolver and a British sten gun from the Second World War era. Access to each was assured by my US$50 all-you-can-shoot fee.
I picked the Heckler & Koch MP-5K, a submachine gun commonly used by Western SWAT teams. The shooting session that followed was surreal. Not 24 hours earlier, I had been in Canada, a country where even hunting rifles and shotguns are deemed so suspect that the government is spending $1-billion to register them. But here in the desert, a man I did not know had just handed me a weapon that sprayed ammo at the rate of 15 rounds per second. I hit nothing, of course -- a machine gun in the hands of an untrained shooter is ridiculously inaccurate -- but my sense of manliness took another uptick.
I went back again and got a Walther PPK, because it is the gun James Bond uses. Then an H&K .40-calibre UMP machine gun, because it is featured in a video game I like. Then a Beretta .38, for no other reason than that it looked cool. I finished off with a Bushmaster XM-15, a semi-automatic variant of the U.S. military's M-16 -- and, chillingly to my mind, the same rifle used by the Washington sniper. The model I fired came with a laser sight, and was extraordinarily accurate even in the hands of a total novice. At 50 yards, the range maximum, I managed to cluster all my shots in the target's head and torso.
In most respects, I think Canadians exaggerate their national differences with the United States. But on the matter of guns, we might as well be from different planets: Whatever complaints rural Canadians have about Ottawa's restrictive gun policies, most would be horrified by a Nevada-style gun law that allows an untrained yahoo like me to walk into a firing range and start blasting away with these sort of weapons. (Certainly, I would.)
Ditto the law that lets local residents walk out of gun shops same-day with sniper rifles, and walk around carrying concealed weapons.
On the other hand, as the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor's Association slogan says, "What happens here, stays here." From the cathouses to the blackjack tables, Las Vegas has catered faithfully to its visitors' fantasies since its famous strip first rose from the dust half a century ago. Shooting machine guns and sniper rifles do not rank as respectable Canadian fun. But that's probably what made it so thrilling.
June 7, 2003 Saturday National Edition
SECTION: Review; Commentary: At the American Shooters Supply and Gun Club; Pg. A28
LENGTH: 688 words
HEADLINE: Shooting the breeze in Las Vegas: By the time the clip was empty, I felt invigorated, manly
SOURCE: National Post
BYLINE: Jonathan Kay
BODY:
The business model at the American Shooters Supply and Gun Club in Las Vegas is encapsulated in its logo: a mustachioed man with aviator sunglasses bursting through a Stars and Stripes background, a massive revolver brandished in his outstretched hands. Walk in, hand over your credit card, and you get to become that guy.
I had never before touched a handgun, let alone fired one. But the American Shooters staff was untroubled by my ignorance. At the rental counter, the manager merely asked me to sign a waiver declaring I was not "suffering from depression or mental illness." He then handed me a 9mm Glock 19 pistol, delivered a two-minute presentation on how to use it and directed me to the firing range.
Most of my fellow shooters were gruff-looking locals who had brought their own guns -- duffle bags full of them in some cases -- and seemed to exude a reassuring air of expertise. But other shooters were like me: pop-eyed foreign tourists looking for a thrill. While loading my gun, I made nervous chatter with the guys in the next firing lane -- British 30-somethings who immediately turned the conversation over to griping about restrictive European gun laws.
I took my first shot with my eyes closed, my head turned away, and my arms locked tight. The result was a small hole in the left arm of the silhouette target. (I'd placed it only seven yards away -- the minimum distance permitted by the range.) My fear dissipated and I began working through the magazine. By the time the clip was empty, I felt invigorated and manly.
I had taken the Glock because it is considered a simple gun for beginners. But on the wall display behind the rental counter, there were far more exotic specimens to choose from, including an AK-47 assault rifle, a .44 Magnum revolver and a British sten gun from the Second World War era. Access to each was assured by my US$50 all-you-can-shoot fee.
I picked the Heckler & Koch MP-5K, a submachine gun commonly used by Western SWAT teams. The shooting session that followed was surreal. Not 24 hours earlier, I had been in Canada, a country where even hunting rifles and shotguns are deemed so suspect that the government is spending $1-billion to register them. But here in the desert, a man I did not know had just handed me a weapon that sprayed ammo at the rate of 15 rounds per second. I hit nothing, of course -- a machine gun in the hands of an untrained shooter is ridiculously inaccurate -- but my sense of manliness took another uptick.
I went back again and got a Walther PPK, because it is the gun James Bond uses. Then an H&K .40-calibre UMP machine gun, because it is featured in a video game I like. Then a Beretta .38, for no other reason than that it looked cool. I finished off with a Bushmaster XM-15, a semi-automatic variant of the U.S. military's M-16 -- and, chillingly to my mind, the same rifle used by the Washington sniper. The model I fired came with a laser sight, and was extraordinarily accurate even in the hands of a total novice. At 50 yards, the range maximum, I managed to cluster all my shots in the target's head and torso.
In most respects, I think Canadians exaggerate their national differences with the United States. But on the matter of guns, we might as well be from different planets: Whatever complaints rural Canadians have about Ottawa's restrictive gun policies, most would be horrified by a Nevada-style gun law that allows an untrained yahoo like me to walk into a firing range and start blasting away with these sort of weapons. (Certainly, I would.)
Ditto the law that lets local residents walk out of gun shops same-day with sniper rifles, and walk around carrying concealed weapons.
On the other hand, as the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor's Association slogan says, "What happens here, stays here." From the cathouses to the blackjack tables, Las Vegas has catered faithfully to its visitors' fantasies since its famous strip first rose from the dust half a century ago. Shooting machine guns and sniper rifles do not rank as respectable Canadian fun. But that's probably what made it so thrilling.
"Untrained yahoos" indeed. The guy demonstrated it didn't take a whole lot of training, didn't he? Two minutes, and instructions were probably "load it like this, point it THATaway, and pull this dinkum lever here. Don't shoot yourself."
