Gun lovers flock to Sin City ranges

BUSINESS is booming at Las Vegas gun ranges, where tourists can hire the same semiautomatic weapons used by mass murderer Stephen Paddock.

Chillingly, one of them offers The Ultimate Shooting Experience just a few hundred yards from the Mandalay Bay Hotel where he staged his killing spree.

Another, called Battlefield Vegas, was so busy less than a week after the massacre I had to queue for 20 minutes to hire an AK-47 – also known as a Kalashnikov – capable of firing 600 rounds per minute. This is one of the military assault rifles in the huge arsenal of weapons Paddock smuggled into his hotel room.

In one three-second burst, I peppered a human-sized paper target with 14 potentially lethal shots, including one “instant kill” hit in the bullseye. I am no marksman but it was almost impossible to miss.

This process is being repeated daily at other licensed ranges in Sin City with names such as Machine Guns Vegas, American Shooters, Las Vegas Gunfights and Machine Gun Experience.

At The Range 702 on Dean Martin Drive, not far from Mandalay Bay, sales assistant Dawn said: “Every day is as busy as this.

“We take walk-ins but it’s much better if you book in advance.

“After what happened, I’d say a lot more people are curious now and we are busier than ever.”