Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Waikiki Gun Club gives tourists shooting time
Most come from nations with strict weapons laws
HONOLULU — There is an old bazooka resting on the white ventilation system just above Lynn Pang’s head.
“We don’t have ammunition for that,” she says cheerily.
But the Waikiki Gun Club seems to have most everything else. There are AR-15s, AK-47s and a Beowulf .50-caliber beast that comes equipped with a monopod beneath the barrel to support its heavy frame.
The place is tucked in a sliver of property on bustling Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki. Sandwiched between Electric Paradise Tattoo and Baule’a (which sells flip-flops, handbags and suitcases), the club could be passed easily.
Its low profile is one reason manager Eric Yang has people handing out flyers to the herds of tourists wandering the sidewalks.
Yang said most of his customers come from Australia, China and Japan — places with much stricter gun laws than the United States. He said his gun range is a chance for these visitors to shoot weapons they couldn’t even see, let alone touch, in their home countries.
For 13 hours a day, six days a week, and 12 hours on Sunday, the door is open. A sign reads, “Experience Live Firearms! Feel the Power!” Above, a neon outline of a gun glows red, promising a tantalizing, titillating moment of adrenaline fueled by Hollywood action heroes. Right by the front desk, a squinting John Wayne is pictured, bracketed by his famous line, “A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”
A group of eight Chinese visitors arrives on a Sunday afternoon. They speak no English, but Pang collects their payments, looks at their passports and has them sign the paperwork. Each of them is given a pen with a bright yellow plastic flower attached to the end. As they all sign, it looks like a row of flowers waving in a light breeze. Catchy pop music plays in the background.
Behind Pang are bright screens
that display what resemble a menu from a fast-food restaurant.
There’s the A Course, which is a basic package of three handguns and 36 shots for $79. The C Course is the most popular, Pang said. It’s like a combo meal for gun enthusiasts: three handguns, three rifles and 55 rounds for $149. The super-sized option features more exotic fare, including a 9 mm Uzi.
After shooting packages and targets are chosen, the customers walk past printed images featuring the U.S. Marine Corps, a Sept. 11 memorial poster and another showing shooting champion Todd Jarrett.
A black door is buzzed and they walk through and wait in a small holding area before another door opens to the shooting range.
Only those who pay to shoot are allowed in the indoor range. But observers can watch the action on a black-and-white monitor in the narrow waiting area lined with two benches.
Marcus Axisa, 28, showed up to shoot guns that are impossible to fire in Sydney. According to Philip Alpers, adjunct associate professor at the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health, many of the guns at the Waikiki Gun Club — such at the AR-15 — are rarely used in Australia.
“Under the country’s most restrictive ‘Category D’ firearm license, a very small number of professional shooters of vertebrate pests are permitted to possess semi-auto rifles such as the AR-15,” Alpers said in an email to the Los Angeles Times. “These are the real Croc Dundees.”