This dude is shocked SHOCKED that Amis have and love their guns.RICHARD PARKER has a problem with his 50-calibre sniper's rifle, but firepower isn't it. Made by Hampshire-based company Accuracy International, the rifle's cigar-sized bullet reputedly slams into distant targets with more force than Dirty Harry's famous .44 Magnum at point-blank range. "With the right ammunition," muses Parker, an amiable 57-year-old marketing executive from Indiana, "you can take out a tank." Accuracy isn't the problem either: Parker can hit a skull-sized target at 2000 yards.
No, his problem is this: where do you fire a weapon of such heart-stopping power and range that American gun-control advocates believe it poses a serious threat to post-9/11 national security? Answer: Knob Creek Range in Kentucky, home to world's largest machine-gun show, a three-day blast-fest which is - outside of actual combat - an unrivalled display of the deadliest firearms ever made.
Knob Creek is in a place called - appropriately enough - Bullitt County. A former munitions test-site tucked into a cleft in the hills, its main range is about 300 metres long and is littered with old cars, boats, refrigerators, cookers, washing machines and gas cylinders. None of these targets last long under the withering gunfire unleashed by dozens of shooters in 30-minute bursts. "Ready on the left?" announces the shoot director over the PA system. "Ready on the right? Okay, let's rock and roll!"