Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 28, 1990 TAG: 9005280091
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: HELOTES, TEXAS LENGTH: Medium
Nearly 200 people took turns firing more than 100 different automatic weapons, from an Uzi submachine gun, to a Lahti anti-tank rifle (also useful against small airplanes), to a Vietnam-era M-16.
"Can you think of a better way to spend a holiday weekend?" said Jim James, who traveled down from Austin on Saturday for the Third Annual Hill Country Machine Gun Shoot in Helotes, 15 miles northwest of San Antonio.
The outdoor target range, just an open area behind a snack shed, was particularly easy to find this weekend. One had only to follow the sounds of rapid gunfire.
The parking area was filled with cars sporting bumper stickers proclaiming "Freedom Wasn't Won with a Registered Gun" and "The more people I meet, the more bullets I need."
Participants paid $5 each to enter the range, then passed signs prohibiting alcohol and intentional shooting at the trees.
Another sign warned "Not Responsible for Accidents."
Most brought their own ear protectors, which looked like bulbous stereo headphones. The noise level was intolerable without them.
The shooting area was divided by a bright yellow plastic tape in front of which 45 registered shooters had spread army blankets and set up their guns.
They came from around the country, but the vast majority were from Texas, the state with the most machine-gun sales.
Standing behind the tape were vendors of commemorative T-shirts, Machine Gun News Magazine, barbecue sandwiches and iced tea.
The families of shooters and other spectators drifted between the guns and the food.
Bill Jonke, an organizer of the shoot, says people who dabble in shooting machine guns have an undeserved reputation. They are not madmen, he said, "just mostly people who we down here call good ol' boys." Guns, he said, are a hobby, like building model cars.
Not that machine guns are cheap. Jonke estimated $15,000 worth of ammunition would be fired Saturday. Wholesale, the average .45-caliber cartridge costs 10 cents, and .30-caliber and .50-caliber ammunition costs up to 50 cents a round, he said.
It takes only seconds to shoot several dozen rounds. The guns can also cost thousands of dollars apiece.
Amid the affectionate descriptions of firearms, there was anger at the limits being imposed on them.
The fact that recently enacted bans on semiautomatics do not apply to automatic weapons, which have been regulated by the federal government since the 1930s, did not matter one whit to the shooters Helotes, many of whom also own semiautomatics.
These laws, they said, were giving people such as themselves a bad reputation.
by CNB