Meet the one man army who owns more than 3,000 weapons and proudly boasts the scary title ‘the most armed man in America’
Mel Bernstein estimates that his military collection in Colorado is worth millions
IN a country where it is believed there are two guns for every resident - one pistol-packing American is doing his bit to bump up the averages.
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.
Mel Bernstein, who earned his nickname thanks to his flamethrower-rigged motorbike, has now given a tour inside his vast private military museum known as Dragon Land.
The gun lover’s paradise in El Paso County, Colorado, boasts a firing range, paint-ball course, 80 military vehicles and a store licensed to sell automatic weapons.
In total, the collector has 3,000 working weapons ranging from samurai swords to bazookas.
With snake tattoos covering his arms, the biker doesn't seem to care what society thinks about his mind-blowing collection which is worth more than £8million.
“Today we’re going to explain why they call me the most armed man in America,” Mr Bernstein said in his weapons tour video.
Directing the camera to a room packed with hundreds of firearms, he said: “Look at these machine guns, everything works, fully operational.
“I have almost 200 of them in my name. I don’t think anyone in the US has that many guns in their name.
“I have weapons so big I can’t even shoot them.”
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Photographs even show him sleeping with a handgun while surrounded by machine guns mounted on his wall.
His isolated 260-acre home on the plains is a far cry from his upbringing on the busy streets of Brooklyn, New York.
The son of a New York chiropractor quit high school in the ninth grade to collect guns, build motorcycles and ride with gangs.
After serving in the army for a one-year stint between 1965 and 1966 during the Vietnam War, Mr Bernstein opened a motorcycle-repair shop on Long Island.
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”.
After the tragedy, he turned his attention back to his military museum.
The vast site contains more than 900 uniformed mannequins, 88 vehicles and 3,000 working weapons from samurai swords to bazookas.
It even boasts a room for every country that has fought a war with America from World War One to Afghanistan.
This includes a Nazi room filled with swastikas and machine guns.
“The Nazis had the fastest and best machine guns in World War Two,” he claims.
His military museum has annual revenue of around $600,000 (£483,000).
Gun control was a hot topic in last year's US presidential election with Hillary Clinton calling for reform and Donald Trump ruling it out.
In February a campaigner claimed "more guns" is the answer to America's crime epidemic and wants to educate black city dwellers on their Second Amendment right to carry arms.
In April we told how a military collector got more than he bargained for when an old Russian T54/69 tank that cost him £30,000 had gold bullion worth £2million hidden in the fuel tank.
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