Continuing the strange fascination this country has with firearms, a friend of mine told me a great story the other day. Dubai has several well known pistol and rifle ranges which offer a decent selection of weapons to fire at paper targets or clay pigeons. But about two years ago he visited a place in Ajman (another emirate about two hours drive north along the coast) which takes the concept of a gun range to a whole new level.
Instead of offering just a modest selection of weapons like most normal club would, this place apparently has everything ranging from Uzis to M-16s to mega-calibre elephant guns - and you can shoot them all. The indoor range is a good place to warm up on paper targets, but the real gem is when you go to the outdoor range where they have several parked cars there for targets. Feeling stressed? Come to Ajman and empty an entire M-16 clip at full-automatic on an old Honda Civic. Even better, right next door there is a landing strip for hobby aircraft, so it's not uncommon to be overflown by an ultra-lite on final approach while you're spraying a car with bullets. But what really takes the cake is the fact that last year the gun range was robbed and their entire arsenal was stolen ... maybe it was a disgruntled pilot who had to pry out one too many stray bullets from his aircraft.
Instead of offering just a modest selection of weapons like most normal club would, this place apparently has everything ranging from Uzis to M-16s to mega-calibre elephant guns - and you can shoot them all. The indoor range is a good place to warm up on paper targets, but the real gem is when you go to the outdoor range where they have several parked cars there for targets. Feeling stressed? Come to Ajman and empty an entire M-16 clip at full-automatic on an old Honda Civic. Even better, right next door there is a landing strip for hobby aircraft, so it's not uncommon to be overflown by an ultra-lite on final approach while you're spraying a car with bullets. But what really takes the cake is the fact that last year the gun range was robbed and their entire arsenal was stolen ... maybe it was a disgruntled pilot who had to pry out one too many stray bullets from his aircraft.