The quest: To dodge the slings and arrows of holiday cheer

Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2007 | 7:22 a.m.

There had to be someplace to go Christmas shopping without smelling fake pine scents, hearing robotic toys that tell jokes as good as eggnog and age just as well, and suffering "Jingle Bell Rock" in excess of Geneva Convention rules governing torture. Probably this place sells guns.

Right?

The search started at the Bass Pro shop inside the Silverton Hotel and Casino. For perspective's sake, it included a shopper of the female persuasion (my wife).

Inside the door of the Bass Pro was a Santa display. Beyond the display, there were a lot of shoppers.

Turn left into the store and there was a display of 6-inch-tall plastic men in orange vests, each holding a miniature shotgun. These are BPS ShotgunSams, retailing for $9.95. Pressing the buttons on their bases caused them to swivel and say, in Big Mouth Billy Bass sound quality, "I've got the target in my sights (BLAM)."

(Wife: "We could get that for your mom.")

There were also lots of toy guns and crossbows that shoot foam darts. ("No, you're not going to shoot the dog with that.")

Upstairs there were also real guns and crossbows ("If you can't have a gun, you can't have one of those.") You can fire these in separate ranges, which many shoppers did with visible pleasure, probably because gunfire was an alternative to the store's Christmas music.

And for the kids, there were Red Ryder BB rifles, though $59.95 is an awful lot to pay to shoot your eye out.

Back downstairs was more junk. Pillows shaped like fish and sharks, a hummingbird feeder that looked like a martini, fishing lure jewelry and a furniture set in camouflage print. ("When do you get deer in the living room?")

So: Christmas shopping at Bass Pro was as horrifying as everywhere else - music, junk, crowds - but with the consolation of a shooting range and giant fish tanks.

There had to be a better place. And there was.

It's called The Gun Store, and it was pretty busy on the morning of Christmas Eve.

(There won't be any extra perspective here.)

You may know The Gun Store from its "shoot a machine gun" ads at the airport. And you can: There's an indoor range where you can shoot machine guns, about which more will be said later. The range is mostly for tourists.

But The Gun Store is also a gun store, and that's for locals.

Sales figures are pretty much the same around the holidays as they are the rest of the year, says Chris Irwin, who owns the place with his father, Bob.

What changes is what people buy. For instance, a man might get a small pistol for his wife or a woman might get her husband a gift certificate for a new shotgun with all the trimmings.

It's been a surprisingly busy holiday season, Irwin said, with the best-seller being $3 key-chain-size cans of pepper spray.

"I guess people think they're good little stocking stuffers for protection," he said.

After that, Irwin said, the latest model of Taser, the C2, was doing very well. "It's more compact, easier to conceal and more comfortable to hold."

And, of course, the black T-shirts that say "The Gun Store" have been very popular with the tourists fresh off the firing range, which, by the way, you can get gift certificates for.

Normally, the range business drops off with the holiday tourism slump, but it's going well this year. There were more than 75 customers before noon on Christmas Eve. Irwin said the range is big with foreign tourists who don't get many opportunities to fire automatic weapons back home.

"I grew up with this stuff," he said, "but I guess it's like growing up in Disneyland."

Indeed, waiting for their chance to plug paper Osama bin Ladens were a couple of pale tourists making giddy small talk in thick London accents.

"It's like archery, really. It's a sport," one said.

Then a range employee came around and asked what kind of shotgun they'd like.

"It's got to be a pump, dinnit?" said Mr. Archery, pumping his arm along an imaginary gun barrel. "So it can go clishet-clishet."

In conclusion: Christmas shopping at The Gun Store was music-free, the stocking stuffers were practical and gift certificates were available. The range, alas, is closed today.