Our British cousins gaze upon America’s vibrant, thriving gun culture with a mix of curiosity, disbelief and horror. While the two nations share the same language (sort of), they don’t share much in the way of freedom. When it comes to guns, sadly British subjects don’t enjoy any right to keep and bear arms. In fact, any gun culture the Brits may once have enjoyed is so shriveled and atrophied that when someone find a stray rimfire cartridge laying in the street, it merits a police response and makes the news.
So imagine the abject terror our friends across the pond must feel upon reading The Sun today. It seems they’ve discovered “The Dragon Man,” Mel Bernstein. “Meet the one man army who owns more than 3,000 weapons and proudly boasts the scary title ‘the most armed man in America’” screams the headline.
We here at TTAG profiled Mr. Bernstein’s impressive video touring his personal museum back in February. If you missed it, pour yourself a drink and enjoy.
Right out of the gate, The Sun portrays Bernstein’s collection predilection as “frightening.”
Mel Bernstein – known as the Dragon Man – has earned the title the ‘most armed man in the US’ and has a frightening 3,000 weapons in his collection – and that doesn’t include the tanks.
The Sun should distribute a complimentary pair of Depends for their readers brave enough to make it through the entire article. The reporters, of course, make a point of including how the Dragon Man lost his wife to bolster the narrative that shooting sports present a mortal danger to anyone who participates.
He moved to Colorado with his wife, Terry Flanell, in 1982, where they opened the gun store and started building the collection.
But Bernstein was hit by tragedy in 2012 when his wife was killed at their rifle range while filming a Discovery Channel reality show.
Terry died when she was hit by two smoke bombs travelling at 150mph while being used to create a smoky atmosphere for the show about the military.
Speaking at the time, Bernstein said: “I lost my best friend”.
Again, watch the video. And if you’re in his area in Colorado, the museum surely looks like a great place to stop for firearm enthusiasts.