Very few people in the U.S. have had the experience of firing a fully automatic firearm, since even in a country awash in hundreds of millions of legal firearms, only a few hundred thousand are capable of full-auto firing. For the average person to own one requires extensive government paperwork and fees on top of the artificially inflated five- or six-figure price tag for the guns themselves. Realistically, it's not possible for all but the richest shooters.
SHOT Show, the world's biggest gun show, descended on Las Vegas in January after a pandemic-induced year off. Before the buyers scurried around the floor of the Venetian Expo trying to secure stock from salesmen with fewer offerings than in years past, many made their way to a massive outdoor range to test out the offerings. I went along with them.
