Tales of a Range Safety Officer: The Case of the Electric Machine Guns

Original Post: 03/12/2019, Republished: 03/05/2026

Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to read is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Welcome to Tales of an RSO.

A long time ago, when I worked as a Range Safety Officer (RSO) at Battlefield Vegas, I dealt with hundreds of customers from all over the world. Over time, you hear just about every question imaginable.

Or at least, you think you have.

Summertime Madness at Battlefield Vegas

This incident happened during my very first summer working at Battlefield Vegas.

Until one day someone asks a question that permanently seared itself into your memory.

Summers here are absolute madhouses with customers nonstop from the moment we open until we close. The volume of customers we see during this shift is on another level.

It’s a Saturday. The sun is scorching down on the Las Vegas Strip. The pavement is hot, and the people seek refuge from the heat. The unforgiving Nevada sun bakes down on us in this modern Babylon.

Summers here are absolute madhouses with customers nonstop from the moment we open until we close. The volume of customers we see during this shift is on another level.

Business is booming (which no one complains about), but the pace is insane. Everyday feels like holding the line in a battle. You just try to keep the gates secure while the crowds keep pouring in.

Setting the Stage

Inside the walls of Battlefield, it’s another busy Saturday during peak season. The range is packed, the heat is brutal (the A/C can barely keep up within the packed building), and the RSOs are running balls to the wall.

I had just paged the next group for a safety brief when a customer asked me a question I will never forget…one that is permanently seared into my memory.

Welcome to the, “Tales of an RSO: The Case of the Electric Machineguns.”

Business is booming (which no one complains about), but the pace is insane. Everyday feels like holding the line in a battle. You just try to keep the gates secure while the crowds keep pouring in.

Her Name Was Lisa

 this fateful day, I was part of the team running a group of 15 shooters. Since I was the boot (aka the new kid on the block), I was tasked with giving the safety brief.

Once the range was set up and ready for the group, I went back out to the lobby and paged them so I could begin the briefing.

While waiting for everyone to gather, a woman from the group approached me with the pager. She handed it over, and I verified that it was the correct one before placing it back on the charging dock.

I introduced myself.

“Good afternoon, my name is Drew . I’ll be one of your RSOs today. Where’s the rest of the crew?”

She replied, “Oh, they’re coming. My boyfriend went to grab the rest.” Slowly but surely everyone started to flood into the building and make their way to the RSO counter. 

She and her friends were all dressed the same: swimsuit tops, white shorts, and sandals. While guys of the group wore: white tops and shorts with sandals. I as they talked amongst themselves and I noticed an accent and asked, “Where are you ladies visiting from?”

“London,” she said.

For the sake of this story, we’ll call her Lisa.

We kept chatting while waiting for the rest of the group. The usual customer questions came up:

How long have you been doing this?

Were you in the military?

What’s your favorite gun?

Nothing unusual.

Until Lisa dropped a bombshell of a question.

The Question That Stopped Me Cold

Lisa and I continued talking while she eagerly leaned over the counter, eyeing the machine guns on display: the MG-42, M60, M240B, PKM (As I affectionately call it, “The People’s Killing Machine”), and  many more.

She leaned back against the counter, placed her elbows on the countertop, and gently rested her chin in her hands like a curious child.

Then she asked:

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, go ahead,” I said with a smile.

She looked me dead in the eye, right into the depths of my soul and asked:

“How do you guys charge the guns every night?”

I froze in pure shock.

She can’t be serious. Is she?

My internal monologue instantly went into full Kevin Hart mode:

“Hold on! Wait! What!? What did she just ask me!? Pineapples! Bitch, stop. No way she just said that.”

Trying to stay calm and trying very hard not to laugh I asked with a devilish smirk:

“What do you mean when you say… charge the guns?”

Lisa clarified.

“Well, I mean…since the guns are electric-powered, you plug them in to charge overnight so they’re ready to use the next day, right?”

At this point my brain short-circuited.

My internal monologue was now screaming at full volume:

“DID SHE JUST ASK IT ME? NO! LOL

I leaned on the counter like an old Western bartender and asked:

“Do you think these guns are real?”

“Yes,” she said. “I know they’re real. But you guys still charge them every night to make sure they work, right?”

So I took a deep breath, trying to process what she had just said.

“Lisa,” I asked slowly, “what exactly do you mean by charging the guns?”

She took a breath and elaborated.

“Well, I mean when you guys are done for the day, since the guns are electric powered, you plug them in to charge them so you can use them the next day, right?”

Inside my head I was now screaming:

“WORD!? DID SHE JUST ASK ME THAT QUESTION AGAIN… IN ANOTHER WAY!?”

The reason I asked Lisa the same question multiple times was to see if I was hearing this incorrectly or if I missed something in translation. I missed nothing. Lisa truly believed her question as valid. Wild! 

Clearing Up the Confusion

I was completely dumbfounded.

So I grabbed a Magpul M4 magazine from the ammo cart, titled it towards her, and leaned back into this crazy conversation. 

“We use real ammunition here,” I explained. “No electric airsoft guns. No charging stations. Just real firearms.” This answer absolutely blew her mind.

From there, I gave Lisa a quick rundown of the cycle of operations for a firearm and explained why no charging was necessary for any of our firearms on this property. 

I even joked that if we had to plug in 500+ firearms every night, our electric bill would be astronomical.

By the time I finished my impromptu “Firearms 101” lesson, the rest of her group had arrived and it was time to begin the safety brief.

The Struggle Is Real

Working at a shooting range, you encounter firearms misconceptions almost every day.

Movies, video games, and pop culture often can paint a wildly inaccurate picture of firearm functions and capabilities. Part of my job as an RSO was to correct those misconceptions so people leave the range with a better understanding of what they just experienced.

Some stories are funny like Lisa’s question and The Case of the Electric Machineguns. 

Others can be dangerous, like the times customers accidentally point live firearms at me because they don’t understand the concept of muzzle awareness. Through it all, I wouldn’t trade the job for anything.

Well… almost anything. I’d happily trade not having guns accidentally pointed at me. That part I could definitely do without.

Final Thoughts

Working as an RSO, you quickly learn that people arrive at the range with all kinds of ideas about how firearms work. Movies, video games, and pop culture have a funny way of shaping expectations.

Part of the job is making sure people leave knowing a little more than when they walked in.

And every once in a while, someone asks a question so unexpected that it sticks with you for years.

Lisa’s question was one of those moments.

For the record, we never did find the charging cable for the machine guns. If the guns were electric…where exactly would we plug in an MG-42?