Minnesota firearms facility allows public to 'shoot' bin Laden in role-playing game

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**Jihadin**

Usama bin Laden is not dead – in Minnesota, at least.

A firearms training center in New Hope is offering Americans the chance to gun down the former Al Qaeda leader in a $325-per-person role-playing game, which runs three times per week.

“Start your Navy SEAL adventure with a mission briefing where you will learn that your target is mysteriously named GERONIMO,” the website for Sealed Mindset Firearms Studio says.

The facility is run by Larry Yatch, a former Navy SEAL, Minnesota Public radio reports.

At the start of the game, players are briefed on the Navy SEAL Team Six mission that resulted in bin Laden’s death in May 2011.

Participants then head to a firing range and take target practice at pictures of bin Laden using real, live assault rifles.

According to Minnesota Public Radio, one group was told by Yatch to shoot "anything above the moustache to below the turban.”

The game concludes when each member grabs a paintball gun made to look like an assault rifle, walks through hallways and rooms modeled after bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound, and shoots an actor dressed like bin Laden.

The actor wears a robe, turban and fake beard, but has rubber padding and a helmet underneath to protect himself from bruises.

Yatch says he offers the role-playing game to teach self-defense skills, Minnesota Public Radio reports.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/19/minnesota-firearms-facility-allows-public-to-hoot-bin-laden-in-roleplaying-game/#ixzz242UMFeIm

325 fun coupons to do this....WTF....there better be OPFOR to.

**Ifepy**

Haha I wouldn't mind being opfor. But I guarantee if the guys who are opfor are actually trying there's no way the "seals" are gonna get a chance at bin laden

**KalashnikovMarine**

Kinda pricey, but fairly normal for firearms training courses with a tactical lean to them. Especially if the instructors are even vaguely competent.

**Jihadin**

I'm thinking for that price they have to be using Hueys for the assualt

**djones520**

Real live assault rifles huh? I'm glad they clarified that. I would have been dissapointed if I was shooting with fake dead assault rifles.

**KalashnikovMarine**

Jihadin wrote:
I'm thinking for that price they have to be using Hueys for the assualt

Depends on the block of huey I suppose. No stealth attack from my lovelies though. THWOCK THWOCK THWOCK. The disturbance on those blades can penetrate a man's soul from a couple miles.

Also is this really news? Saddam and Bin Laden targets have been popular since 2001, and CQB training is certainly nothing new. Not surprising an entrepreneur with a CQB range would combine the two.

**ShumaGorath**

Yatch says he offers the role-playing game to teach self-defense skills, Minnesota Public Radio reports.

Oh come now, lets be our realest. You're giving rednecks some power fantasy fulfillment. This has nothing to do with learning self defense.

**Jihadin**

Teaching them to clear a building probaly. Same technique can be used if you have a intruder in the house

**Coolyo294**

Huh, I may have to visit this place sometime.

**Easy E**

Hmmmm, I wonder if this is in the 6th Congressional district by chance?

I need to consult a map.

Edit: Nope the edge of 3 and 5.

The 5th is represented by Keith Ellison. This is strongly Democratic
The 3rd by Erik Paulsen. This is stronly Republican

I guess killing Bin Laden crosses all demographic and party lines.

**Tibbsy**

I don't know about you guys, but I would hate to be that actor

That would probably suck, padding or not...

**Grey Templar**

Might not be a bad gig. I'd want good pay and benifits out the wazoo, and probably get them too.

In other news, people have been shooting at o'le Binny's pictures for years now.

**Daemonhammer**

Sounds fun

**Frazzled**

Jihadin wrote:
I'm thinking for that price they have to be using Hueys for the assualt

This would be worth it if there were babes with bikinis at the end.

**sebster**

Sounds like it'd be fun to me. Be awesome for a bachelor party.

"What'd you get up to on you're buck's night, honey?"
"Well me and the boys went out, shot some guns then did this room clearing thing where I got to take down Bin Laden at the end. Then we had some drinks, I banged a stripper and after that it's a bit of a blur."

Jihadin wrote:
Teaching them to clear a building probaly. Same technique can be used if you have a intruder in the house

Come on mate, there's no point pretending this is real skills stuff. If you're spending $325 on the hypothetical possibility of som situation where you absolutely have to move through your house room by room, and not, you know, getting the family together upstairs and calling the police then your priorities are beyond screwed.

**Jihadin**

Come on mate, there's no point pretending this is real skills stuff. If you're spending $325 on the hypothetical possibility of som situation where you absolutely have to move through your house room by room, and not, you know, getting the family together upstairs and calling the police then your priorities are beyond screwed.

Sorry. Didn't mean to bring real life experience in clearing a room.

**sebster**

Jihadin wrote:
Sorry. Didn't mean to bring real life experience in clearing a room.

I mean, hey, if you really want to learn how to clear a room join the army, they'll pay you

But that's a lot of work and there's a chance you might end up with someone shooting at you. If you just want to have a bloke's weekend then put down $325 and shoot Bin Laden.

**Melissia**

Or at least a cardboard cutout of him.

**KalashnikovMarine**

sebster wrote:
Jihadin wrote:
Sorry. Didn't mean to bring real life experience in clearing a room.

I mean, hey, if you really want to learn how to clear a room join the army, they'll pay you

But that's a lot of work and there's a chance you might end up with someone shooting at you. If you just want to have a bloke's weekend then put down $325 and shoot Bin Laden.

Feth that, tactical training's a service like any other. If someone wants to learn proper CQB and they'll pay me to provide it I'm more then happy to teach it or hire a guy who will. When it comes down to it I'd rather have people checking out a suspicious noise in the most effective and SAFE way possible then just blindly lumbering their way into a trip to the ER or the morgue.

**sebster**

Melissia wrote:
Or at least a cardboard cutout of him.

Nah, its a guy in a turban and beard.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Feth that, tactical training's a service like any other. If someone wants to learn proper CQB and they'll pay me to provide it I'm more then happy to teach it or hire a guy who will. When it comes down to it I'd rather have people checking out a suspicious noise in the most effective and SAFE way possible then just blindly lumbering their way into a trip to the ER or the morgue.

Yeah, but again, thinking that money is well spent on learning to clear a room because of some future hypothetical where you absolutely have to move room by room through your house is nutty. Doing it because its fun, or of interest to you, sure, but because room clearing is a skill needed by men today? Nah.

**Squigsquasher**

Melissia wrote:
Or at least a cardboard cutout of him.

I have an idea for my next LittleBIGplanet level...

**Lynata**

sebster wrote:Doing it because its fun, or of interest to you, sure, but because room clearing is a skill needed by men today? Nah.

Yeah, that just sounded like the usual "we're not playing, this is MAN STUFF" schpiel that makes insecure people feel better about spending a couple hundred bucks.

As Ifepy said, if the "Opfor" are really trying, the customers wouldn't get a shot. The mere fact that people are supposed to take down Bin-Laden already betrays that the event is obviously more of a spectacle rather than a proper training course. People spending that much money will want to go home with a fancy photo of them posing over a "dead" body and a brass medal commemorating their heroics. The only thing this supposed "self-defense course" might achieve is giving people a false sense of skill and professionalism. I can already see some guy with a shotgun attempting the pie-slice technique in the midst of night before stumbling over his slippers and falling flat on his face.

one group was told by Yatch to shoot "anything above the moustache to below the turban.”

^ This is NOT how you teach people to aim. q.e.d.

Honestly, just call it what it is and then have fun with that.

Props to them if they really managed to make a paintball gun look like an assault rifle, though. Somehow I don't believe they managed to get everything that small, but who knows.

**IronWarLeg**

They have paintball guns that look almost exactly like m9 pistols and m4 carbines. They don't use paint balls in the sense t hey are like round balls, they use sim rounds that fire paint filled plastic bullets. I have played with them while I was doing security training in the Navy, as well as played regular paintball and sim rounds hurt way fething more.

**Frazzled**

Could also be airsoft guns no? They definitely have military ripoffs there.

**Daemonhammer**

Frazzled wrote:
Could also be airsoft guns no? They definitely have military ripoffs there.

Where is the border between a replica and a rip-off of a gun start and finish?

**IronWarLeg**

Here you go: http://simunition.com/en/products/fx_marking_cartridges they make conversion kits for real firearms, hence the realistic looking guns, and sell ammo :-)

Oh and I think the shotgun would be funny, dunno why.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Daemonhammer wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Could also be airsoft guns no? They definitely have military ripoffs there.

Where is the border between a replica and a rip-off of a gun start and finish?

Technically any gun made to look and feel exactly like another is a ripoff, but airsoft fashions their weapons after military firearms. They do look just like the real deal except some have orange tips, and most are lighter because your not carrying a 30 rnd mag of 5.56, and the cheap ones are plastic.