Massacre spurs interest in gun buying
Officials see surge in conceal-carry applications
REDLANDS, Calif. — After Gun Boss ArmoryopenedforbusinessMondaymorning in a Redlands strip mall, Matt Nicholson was among those who walked through the door.
“I’ve never owned a gun before,” Nicholson told an employee behind the counter, who handed him a silver Beretta handgun from a display case.
Nicholson, a 23-year-old Redlands resident, said he had thought about buying a firearm in the past. But the attack that claimed 14 lives at a San Bernardino social services center last week — about five miles awayfromGunBossArmory—madeuphis mind. “It wasalittle tooclose to home,” hesaid. Nicholsonwasamongseveralrattledcustomers streaming into gun stores this week in San Bernardino County, a relatively conservativeregionwheregunculturehastaken rootmoredeeplythaninCalifornia’saffluent coastal areas.
The county has about six gun stores per 100,000 residents, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — twice the per-capita concentration of neighboring Los Angeles County.
As politicians and gun control advocates have seized on the San Bernardino shooting as a reason to restrict firearm access, many of those on the front lines of the tragedy are seeking to arm themselves.
“This is basically home protection,” said Doug Crossman, a 32-year-old resident of nearby Mentone who was also shopping at Gun Boss Armory. He said his wife works about a mile from the site of last Wednesday’s shooting and had been badly shaken by it, leading the couple to decide to buy a handgun.
“I’d rather be sitting on the phone with the cops with a gun in my hand than on the phone praying nobody’s going to shoot,” Crossman said.
Federal data on local background checks for gun sales since Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik opened fire on Farook’s co-workers at an office event are not yet available. But there are indications that the tragedy has catalyzed a new interest in firearms in the Southern California, especially in the firearm-friendly counties that spread east and south of left-leaning L.A.
San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Adam Cervantes said 75 applications for concealed-weaponspermitsweresubmitted lastweekend,aboutseventimesthedepartment’s normal application volume.
Orange County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Jeff Hallock said his office saw 130 applications for concealed-weapons permits last weekend, up from the roughly 30 applicationsthattypicallycomein.Sheriff’sofficials inRiversideandSanDiegocountiessaidthey had likewise seen new interest from people asking about concealed-carry permits.
“Public interest and questions usually increasesubsequenttoahigh-profiletragedy suchasSanBernardino,”SanDiegoCounty Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Jan Caldwell said.
Surges in the gun trade have at times appeared directly linked to horrific shootings. In December 2012 — the month Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. — more background checks forlegalU.S.gunsaleswereperformedthan during any other month over the 17 years of available federal records.
Yet there are signs that the post-San Bernardino gun rush is different. Firearms dealers say previous spikes in sales after massacres were driven in large part by fear thatimpendinggovernmentregulationcould cutofftheweaponssupply.Bycontrast,the current wave of interest has a different and more basic impulse: self-preservation.
Terry McGuire, owner of the Get Loaded gun store in Grand Terrace, estimated that business at his store had jumped 25 percent since the San Bernardino massacre.
McGuire said he thought the surge of interest in purchasing weapons was different from what he witnessed after the Sandy Hook school shooting, when many Americans sought to stockpile firearms and ammunition in case more restrictive gun laws went into effect.
ThereactiontotheSanBernardinoshooting is more visceral, he said.
“Sandy Hook was more, ‘I need to get a gun because they’re going to take them,’” McGuire said. “Now people are scared.”
SuchfearhasspreadwellbeyondSanBernardino County.
Liz Robinson, who teaches a course for concealed-weapon permit applicants at Ted’s Shooting Range in Phoenix, echoed McGuire’s view. While her uptick in businesshasresembledtheoneshesawafterthe Newtownshooting,shesaid,hercustomers’ motives have not.
“They’re not coming in saying the government is going to take our guns,” she said. “The feeling I’m getting is they don’t want to be caught without a way to protect themselves.”