Kiwi guns for tourist dollar in Las Vegas

Las Vegas is offering tourists more bang for their buck, thanks to an enterprising Kiwi. The star attraction is Genghis Cohen's Machine Guns Vegas where the cost of shooting a real machine-gun starts at US$90 ($108) and climbs to around US$700. Cohen said Vegas was steadily becoming "the Queenstown of America", and gaming revenue was on the slide. "People come here to go to the Grand Canyon. A friend of mine owns Sky Jump in Auckland and has set it up in Vegas," he said. Cohen said the 900sq m gun facility was not your typical shooting range. "It looks like a cross between a clothing boutique and a high-end ultra lounge," he said. The VIP lounge has large plasma screen TVs, plush couches, hard-wood floors and antique brick walls. He said people were paired with ex-military range masters. "We hire 'gun girls' as sales assistants, but some have military backgrounds. They've had formal firearms training but have also had modelling experience," he said. Cohen, whose father was an antique gun dealer, had been in the US for 13 years and had been in the army in New Zealand since he was 18. "I wanted to offer high-end firearms training to foreigners. The idea was to utilise New Zealand army and ex-SAS guys here to train foreigners. We realised we needed an indoor gun range and then eventually decided on catering to high-end customers," he said. Since its opening two weeks ago, tourists from the UK, Europe, Canada, Australia and Asia had flocked in, he said. "I would love to set something like this up in New Zealand, but I don't think I'd be allowed to bring the weapons into the country."