From Valentine’s Day To Zombies, Vegas Embraces In-Your-Face Gun Promotion

Las Vegas, NV – Gun ranges in Las Vegas are sponsoring several love-themed promotions this Valentine’s Day.

One range advertises a “take a shot at love” package. The campaign includes shooting 50 submachine gun rounds. Another invites lovers to shoot out paper zombie cutouts while renewing nuptials. There are wedding options that even provide posing with AK-47s for pictures before going off to the range with guests. Others offer tongue-in-cheek shotgun weddings, celebrating love with a firearm in your hand. Tourists can play out zombie apocalypses, Dirty Harry, mob themes, and Wild West fantasies.

While other cities are taking a more subdued stance on the controversial issue of firearms, Sin City is audaciously capitalizing on the state’s flexible gun laws, especially for Valentine’s Day.

Patrons are provided the opportunity to fire off otherwise inaccessible (depending on US state) military-grade weaponry. If customers are not participating in the name of love but in spite of it, the businesses know customers will pay to shred former love tokens and pictures of exes with a fully-automatic, high-powered weapons.

Gun control proponents argue against these types of promotions. They consider the use of high-capacity ammunition in military-grade guns as Valentine’s Day props with glossy sexualized ads as misleading, casually trivializing the potential dangers associated with firearms.

Lianne Heck, marketing director at Range 702, explained the company’s position regarding promotional offers:

“We give what people are asking for, whether it’s the ‘mob experience’ and they want to test a Tommy gun, or a bachelor package, and they want a limo to take them to the club afterward.”

Emily Miller, an officiant and head of marketing for the Gun Store, also excused her range’s campaigns as just giving customers what they want.

“People always want to put a spin on it like it’s a hostile or angry thing. Really, customers just want to have fun. It’s like a bucket list item.”

Do you think it is garish for shooting ranges or wedding chapels to offer firearm-themed events and weddings?

[Image via Shutterstock]