My brush with the United States gun obsession in Las Vegas
ALMOST anyone can use almost any type of gun in the US — even if they’re 10 years old. And the American love of guns takes some getting used to, writes recent visitor Cheryl Critchley.
Opinion
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FOR someone who’d never held a gun, it wasn’t a bad effort — four out of 10 shots from the Glock 17 handgun landed in the bullseye, the rest not far off.
It was almost enough to make a naive Aussie enjoy playing with a lethal weapon. But the US obsession with guns takes some getting used to, even if those teaching you to shoot are as nice as pie.
Standing in one of half a dozen or so booths at the indoor Machine Guns Vegas shooting range, this reporter, despite the earmuffs and protective glasses, found the constant and startlingly loud hail of gunfire almost enough to trigger a dive for cover.
But despite having no experience of brandishing an unsecured deadly weapon, I overcame my nerves to fire a semiautomatic machinegun. And no one batted an eyelid.
After a brief personal instruction session from a competent and friendly young female attendant, whose step by step explanation made everything seem almost normal, it was all guns blazing.
To the instructor, and to the lovely older woman driving the complimentary shuttle (with guns stuck to the roof) and the two male and female English tourists sharing the ride, this was just another Las Vegas attraction.
By the end of the session, thanks to several bullseyes, I almost thought so, too.
The gunfire was extremely loud, and there was some feedback. But putting that aside — and the fact you could wipe out a small army at any time — you could almost picture this as a legitimate pursuit. Almost.
One of the first things you notice on arrival at the world’s gambling capital — apart from poker machines at the airport — are the ads for machinegun shooting ranges.
In Australia, most will never see such a weapon — and wouldn’t want to. But in the US, all it takes to “go hands-on with an unparalleled selection of exotic weapons” is a phone call, a credit card, and photo identification.
The nation’s appalling gun deaths record has not put people off. Just three days after we arrived, Umpqua Community College student Chris Harper-Mercer, 26, shot and killed nine people before turning the gun on himself.
The Oregon massacre was the 45th US school shooting this year. But the tragedy caused barely a ripple on the streets of Vegas, where shooting lethal weapons is all part of the fun — fun that essentially anyone not drunk, on drugs, or pregnant can join.
The $167 Machine Guns Vegas Femme Fatale package features an MP5, a pink (for the ladies) M4, and a Glock 17. The MP5 sub-machinegun is commonly used by the military and law enforcement; the M4 is a lighter variant of the M16AZ assault rifle widely used by the US Army; and the Glock 17 is one of the world’s most popular pistols with law enforcement.
The more adventurous can take the SAS (a Sniper .223, a HK MP5, a Glock 17 and a M249 SAW) package, or the SEAL (an M249 SAW, a SIG P226, a tactical shotgun, and an M4), both for $280.
It’s not surprising that shooting is a national pastime when you consider the US has an estimated 300 million guns — almost one for each of its 319 million residents.
My instructor, who despite her youth had been shooting for years, said she believed the rate was three guns per person. (Australia’s is about one in 40.)
She was pleasant, professional, extremely safety-conscious, and almost had me relaxed — until she talked about the kids.
For $85, children as young as 10 can live out their computer games fantasies, she explained — with “age-appropriate” guns.
Those would be a HK MP5 and an M4.
“They love it,” she said.
As the parent of a 12-year-old boy who loves nothing better than shooting zombies online, that really did send me diving for cover.
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