Now the media cares about Gun Tourism

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Their advertising agency doesn’t know about gun safety, but how did they not see it is beyond me.

Before a 9-year-old shot her gun instructor, the media didn’t care about gun tourism. You know, people who travel to a destination far from home to shoot guns.

On December 23, 2013, I wrote about gun vacations in Cambodia. There you can rent a rocket launcher for $400 and kill a cow, if you miss, you get $200 back.

But now that a gun instructor is dead, the media is paying attention:

Bob Irwin, owner of The Gun Store in Las Vegas, considers himself the pioneer of machine gun tourism.

Irwin has been renting out machine guns to tourists for shooting at his indoor gun range since the 1980s. “This is my idea,” he said.

Irwin said that he used to be the only range in town where customers could fire machine guns. But five competitors have opened up just in the last year, dragging down his annual sales by 30%.

Still, he says he averages about 200 customers a day.
Source: http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/21/smallbusiness/machine-guns-las-vegas/

I shot at his range, the line is long, and you don’t even load your own gun, they do that for you. I fired an AK-47 in 30″, they got annoyed since they expected me to do a couple of bursts. Whatever, my money, my choice.

The businesses cast a lighthearted spin on their shooting experiences, staging weddings in their ranges and selling souvenir T-shirts full of bullet holes.

But behind the bravado, owners acknowledge they are one errant movement away from tragedy. Cohen’s business, for example, is installing a tethering system that will prevent machine guns from riding upward after firing — the same motion that killed the gun instructor this week.

“Guns are designed to cause damage, and if they’re mishandled, they’ll do exactly that,” said Bob Irwin, owner of The Gun Store, the original Las Vegas machine gun attraction. “They have to be respected.”

Source: Gun tourism grows in popularity in recent years

Bob Irwin needs to mind his words, guns are designed to fire a projectile, period.  Crossbows can also cause damage, yet I doubt crossbow manufacturers described them as designed to cause damage.

As for the tethering system, it seems to me Bob is taking out the fun of shooting a machine gun. At least give some of us the option of not shooting with training wheels on.

Either way, I see gun tourism as a good thing:

Tourists from countries with the strictest gun laws, such as Japan, are the most attracted to Hawaii’s gun clubs. Jeff Tarumi, an NRA certified instructor at the Royal Hawaiian Shooting Club, estimates that over 90% of his customers are Japanese tourists.

The gun debate is fresh on Tarumi’s mind, too, but he doesn’t believe banning assault rifles is the ticket to safety. “A Glock handgun can shoot as fast as an assault rifle. An assault weapon is just a style of firearm. They’re all the same. If you want to stop speeding is it fair to ban sports cars that do over 200 mph? It’s the same thing as that. It makes no sense. A lot of people are screaming gun control, but if you ask me it’s more people control,” says Tarumi.

Source: Foreign tourists get bang for buck firing guns in U.S.

If America is meant to be a shinning city on a hill, then let the world see our freedoms, and perhaps exports them someday. Gun tourism is also great for our economy, gun ranges, gun makers, ammo makers, and the cities where the ranges are located.

Money talks, money motivates, when a gun manufacturer announces they’re moving to a pro-gun State, other States take notice. When tourists come to a city to shoot guns, the government notices.

Our enemies call us “merchants of death,” but in reality we’re merchants of self-defense and fun.

 

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