The Bulletstop

     The annual Spring Comdex Computer Show in Atlanta earlier this month meant a booming business for the Bulletstop, an indoor firing range in suburban Marietta where customers can rent firearms and bullets to shoot anything they please, as long as it is already dead and fits through the doors. the Bulletstop gave Comdex visitors a chance to vent their frustrations by venting PC's, printers, hard disks, monitors and manuals with lead.
     Paul LaVista, the owner, said about 10 groups of high-tech types came in during the Comdex show. "I'm not a computer whiz, but one group brought in what looked like a hard disk and blasted it," he said. "Another bunch brought in some kind of technical manual. The thing was enormous, about 2,000 pages. They rented three machine guns -- an Uzi, an M3 grease gun and a Thompson -- and when they were done it looked like confetti."
     "It must have been quite a show," LaVista said of Comdex. "Doctors and computer types usually have a lot of pent-up anxiety, but these folks were dragging when they came in. When they left they were really up. The range looked like a computer service center after a tornado."
     LaVista said PC's were popular targets year-round. "People are frustrated with them," he said. A year ago seven or eight men carried in a giant old Hewlett-Packard printer. "I ran an extension cord to it, and just as it started to whir and spit out paper, they blasted it." he said.