I Get Shot All Day for a Living

Frank in some of his combat gear.

Have you ever wanted to get a bunch of your mates together, grab a few glocks and a semi-automatic shotgun and shoot the shit out of some gun range employees? If, like me, your answer is "No, not really," then Orlando's Combat City probably isn't for you. If you're an ordinary, gun-owning American citizen, however, then your answer is probably "HELLS YEAH, BRAH," which is great news, because the facility allows you to shoot real guns at real people for just £60 an hour.

Simunition – a form of non-lethal ammunition – was developed to allow security forces to carry out combat training with live firearms. For over 20 years, American law dictated that only the police and military could claim the privilege of experiencing the closest thing possible to live combat, but Florida has finally amended the law (finally, right?) to allow its six million gun owners to join in the fun. Combat City is maybe the largest company offering that exact experience, with its employees donning safety gear and spending their time being fired on with converted hand guns, shotguns and assault rifles.

I spoke to Frank Cernuto – the manager at Combat City Orlando – about what it's like to be shot at all day by paying customers.

VICE: Hi Frank. So you work at a gun range where people can bring their own guns?
Frank Cernuto: That's correct. But before we get started here, I want to make sure – did you see any of our things on the news or have you read the Yahoo article?

The Yahoo article?
If I could just explain – they didn't contact us at all about that article. We offer two activities at our facility: Air Soft and UTG. They merged the two in their article and made it very misleading. In Air Soft you can shoot each other, in UTG you shoot at trained staff.

Okay. So which one involves real guns?
It's called UTG or Simunition.

What does UTG stand for?
You know what? I honestly don't know. We use real firearms, but instead of firing actual bullets it fires a plastic cartridge that's filled with a chalk-like material. It leaves a small coloured mark when it hits the player so you can tell where the player has been hit.

But these cartridges are fired from real guns?
Yeah, they're fired from real weapons. The weapons are converted before they can be used on the facility.

Can people bring their own guns?
They can, yeah. We have the conversion kits on site, so if they want to bring their own, we convert it for them and then they can use them in exercises. It only takes a few minutes. You take out the barrel, put a new one in and swap the firing pin.

So can they bring any guns?
Yeah, they bring shotguns and multiple calibres and styles of handguns. We also have M4s and M16s, which are assault rifles.

Those are pretty big guns – even if the bullets are made of plastic, does that not really hurt?
Well, I mean, I get shot with them all day long. I play the bad guy in a load of the scenarios we put on, so that involves me getting shot at a lot. It's not really any worse than getting shot with a paintball.

But surely real firearms fire bullets at a much higher velocity than paintball guns?
Yeah they do, and that's due to the gunpowder in the weapon. But after converting a gun for UTM rounds, there'll be less gunpowder in the casing, so the projectile isn't coming at you quite as fast as an actual bullet. It's close but it's not the same.

Do you still feel a large impact when you're hit?
Not really. You wear a lot of safety gear, so you're covered from head to toe. There's usually no part of your skin showing. You get a neck protector, a full mask and a helmet.

Do you give out bulletproof vests?
No, there's no need for them. I've been hit on exposed skin before and it really doesn't hurt that bad. People get scared about it, but there's no chance that it can penetrate skin. There's no chance that it striking you would kill you.

You must get bruises, though, right?
Well, you know, I get shot pretty much every day. I'm looking at my arms right now and I've got one little bruise and couple on my back. I get shot a lot, but I never get anything too bad.

Do you not get scared about getting constantly shot at?
It's my job so I've gotten used to it. Some people are a little scared when they come here, but I know it's totally safe. I don't even think about it when we're doing an exercise; my head's focused on what's going on. I love doing it, so fear doesn't really come into it for me.

What kind of people come to your facility?
Well, we're located in Florida, where you can have a concealed weapons permit and the only requirement in the training to get a permit is to fire a round into a paper target. We try to give them a more realistic scenario where they learn how to shoot at a person coming for you.

That's the only requirement? Jesus. So you provide the closest experience to shooting someone for real?
Yeah. It's totally different actually shooting someone moving around who's going to shoot you. You need to be in a totally different mindset to do that than just going to a gun range and shooting at a target.

As scary as that sounds, it also seems like it'd be a lot fun.
Yeah, it's really fun. It's a much bigger adrenaline rush than playing paintball. There's that level of realism you don't get. We get a lot of bachelor parties, who normally want to come in and goof around, but they're the kind of people who go to the gun range and say “I'd be better in this scenario than you”, so now they've got the chance to prove it.

Yeah, who needs strippers and pub-crawls when you've got shotguns and M16s? Thanks Frank!

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @matthewfrancey

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