The debate over whether “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie might never be settled, but for those who think it is, a Cody gun range is offering customers a chance to fire the film’s iconic weapons this holiday season.
You just won’t be able to do it while wearing a tank top and screaming with bloodied bare feet, like the movie’s hero John McClane, played by Bruce Willis.
‘Now I Have A Machine Gun’
For its Die Hard Christmas Special, Cody Firearms Experience offers customers a dose of holiday cheer.
For $60, shooters can run a full magazine of ammunition through each of the guns McClane used to take out a team of ultra-elite bad guys. That includes a Beretta 92 semiautomatic pistol and a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun.
“The MP5 is full-auto,” Cody Firearms Experience General Manager Paul Brock told Cowboy State Daily.
That’s reflective of one of the movie’s most iconic lines, via a note McClane leaves scrawled on the shirt of one of his slain foes for the rest of the villains to read:
“Now I have a machine gun. Ho-Ho-Ho.”
It’s ‘Absolutely’ A Christmas Movie
When "Die Hard" was released in 1988, it launched Willis in the lead role as McClane to superstardom.
And since it’s set during the Christmas season, and frequently watched by fans during the holidays, it’s widely regarded as a Christmas movie.
Detractors of that idea say that an action movie rife with bloody gunfights, profanity and explosions can’t be a Christmas movie simply because it’s set during the holidays. They argue there's nothing Christmas about the main themes of the film.
Brock said the question over whether "Die Hard" is, in fact, a Christmas movie is what spawned the idea of the Christmas special at Cody Firearms Experience.
“Some friends and I were having a debate over Thanksgiving whether 'Die Hard' is a Christmas movie,” he said. “It comes down to that great debate over whether it is a Christmas movie, and it absolutely is.”
One Of The All-Time Great Action Flicks
The plot of "Die Hard" is straightforward, and it stands as one of the all-time most popular action movies.
Spoiler alert, if you're one of the few people on the planet who hasn't seen "Die Hard," to watch it first before reading further.
Willis’ character, a hard-boiled New York City Cop, is visiting his estranged wife in Los Angeles. They attend her company’s Christmas party in the fictional Nakatomi Plaza high-rise.
Then Hans Gruber (played by the late Alan Rickman in one of his best-remembered roles) crashes the party, showing up with an entire team of heavily armed thugs.
McClane happens to be in the restroom when the gang shows up and takes everybody else hostage as part of their master plan to pull off a huge heist from the building’s safe.
The hero slips away unnoticed, and the rest of the movie involves him playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with the bad guys throughout the high-rise.
He starts off armed only with his trusty Beretta 92 pistol. But then later, as previously noted, he takes an MP5 off a dead villain, equalizing the firepower between McClane and his foes.
The movie spawned a series of sequels, but none of them lived up to the longstanding cult status of the original.
To get customers into the holiday spirit, the Cody Firearms experience is offering a chance to fire a Beretta 92 semiautomatic pistol and a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun. Those were the hero’s weapons of choice in the 1988 action flick “Die Hard” — which many insist is a Christmas movie. (Courtesy Cody Firearms Experience) 
To get customers into the holiday spirit, the Cody Firearms experience is offering a chance to fire a Beretta 92 semiautomatic pistol and a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun. Those were the hero’s weapons of choice in the 1988 action flick “Die Hard” — which many insist is a Christmas movie. Here, a customer fires an MP5. (Courtesy Cody Firearms Experience) 
Cody Firearms Experience (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
Other shooting packages at Cody Firearms Experince includes a World War II package. (Cowboy State Daily Staff)
No, You Can’t Shoot Barefoot
The Beretta 92 and H&K MP5 for the Die Hard Christmas Special are the real deal, Brock said.
The Beretta 92 entered production in the 1970s and was the U.S. military’s main sidearm from 1985-2017. It was one of the first pistols to have a larger-capacity double-stack magazine, boasting enough room for 15 rounds of 9 mm.
It’s still in production and has gone through several variations. But the pistol at Cody Firearms Experience is a 1985 model, making it the right vintage for what McClane carried in the film.
The MP5 is also chambered in 9 mm, with a 30-round magazine. It’s long been a favorite of law enforcement and military special forces.
The guns make the Christmas special immersive as possible, Brock said. But for safety’s sake, customers won’t be allowed to fire the guns in their bare feet and wearing a white tank top, as McClane did in the movie.
They’ll also shoot at paper silhouette targets, not heavily armed bad guys who shoot back.
They also won’t be allowed to shoot through glass or run barefoot across broken glass while shooting, as was depicted in one of the film’s more memorable sequences.
“It’s tough to do crushed glass on a shooting range,” Brock said.
Those feeling so inclinde can — and in fact would be welcome to — yell out McClane's most quoted tagline from the film: "Yippie-Ki-Yay, Mother****er."
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
