A FEW days ago I tried to buy a gun.
Not some dainty little 9mm revolver, mind you, but a big, greasy, semi-automatic AK47 — the kind that comes with a free headsock and a lifetime-in-jail guarantee.
Gun ownership has been on my mind for quite some time. Perhaps it’s the Jack Russell next door who likes to chew on his squeaky ball as I’m trying to write; or maybe it’s the couple in the flat opposite, who wake me up at 2am with the soundtrack to their acrobatic sex sessions.
But what clinched it was a call from The Times’s foreign desk. “Ayres,” said the voice from 6,000 miles away, “we’ve decided we want you to buy a gun. A big one. Put it on expenses. Just don’t tell the managing editor. He’ll go berserk.”
The reason for this request, of course, was to prove that the end of President Clinton’s decade-long ban on assault weapons such as the AK47 meant that any old lunatic — that is, me — could go into Guns ‘R Us and buy one. Within minutes, however, my assignment had suffered a flesh wound: California, apparently, has its own laws banning the sale of AK47s. And so, like any Californian who wants to do something illegal, I booked myself on the next flight to Las Vegas.
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Luckily, however, I decided to first call ahead to Bob Irwin, manager of Sin City’s premier firearms outlet, The Gun Store, Inc. “So, you’re an English dude,” he said slowly, “and you live in . . . California? And you wanna buy an AK47?” Then there was a sound like gunfire. It was laughter.
“Sure, you can come down here and buy one, but your ass will end up in jail,” Bob informed me, before suggesting that I might as well sneak a rocket launcher into my carry-on luggage and claim that it’s a prop for a new show called Extreme Pheasant Shoot.
The bottom line: foreign nationals who try to buy AK47s in Las Vegas end up in Guantanamo Bay. It’s also illegal for residents of California to buy guns out-of-state, making my crime an instant double strike.
The only way to shop for firearms in Nevada is to have a Nevada driving licence, a Nevada bank account and, inconveniently for a British journalist trying to prove that Americans are crazy, an address in Nevada. Oh, and then you have to pass an FBI background check. Another story ruined.
But Bob had more news for me: AK47s have always been legal, anyway. If they were manufactured before Clinton’s ban in 1994, they could still be sold over the counter. And those sold after 1994 had only to be renamed and tweaked — a bayonet clip removed here, a retractable arm there — to remain legal.
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As a result, he said, he had not had a single call from a customer wanting to buy a post-ban weapon.
With a sigh, I cancelled my Vegas ticket and resigned myself to never experiencing the joy of owning a weapon of mass murder. I had been foolish enough to believe that a Bill signed by Clinton actually meant something — instead, the ban was about as logical as a sexual partner with whom you’ve never had sexual relations. Personally, I side with the comedian Chris Rock, who says the US should just ban bullets. Or make them cost $10,000 each.
In the meantime, I’ll have to go to Bethnal Green for my AK47.