Gun shops deemed essential businesses in Riverside County. Some are seeing a boom in sales

First-time gun buyers and customers eager to purchase ammunition are flooding firearms retailers in Southern California as the coronavirus pandemic has stoked concerns about public safety and self-defense in a state on lockdown.

Local gun shops are selling a year's worth of inventory in days and are being pushed to their limits as ammunition is flying off the shelves. The demand in areas such as Riverside County, where gun shops remain open, is being fueled by buyers from neighboring Los Angeles County, where such shops have been ordered to close.

Gov. Gavin Newsom's shelter-in-place order and other orders issued by county and municipal governments effectively sent many California workers home and left all but certain businesses that have been deemed essential shuttered.

Newsom's March 19 order explicitly cites the federal government's list of 16 critical infrastructure sectors to determine which jobs must continue in order to maintain public safety and economic security as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. The Department of Homeland Security amended the list on March 28, to deem essential workers at firearms manufacturers, retailers and shooting ranges.

The California State Public Health Officer subsequently issued a list identifying businesses that includes pharmacies and grocery stores, hospitals and rural health centers, water and energy infrastructure facilities, as essential businesses that are permitted to stay open.

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But whether businesses that were not explicitly identified should be permitted to stay open, is a matter of interpretation and debate across the state.

Firearms retail is one such business.

Newsom has deferred "to the sheriffs in their respective jurisdictions to clarify that question."

They've clarified, but hardly agreed.

Are gun shops essential business?

County by county, sheriff's departments in Southern California have issued statements on whether gun shops will be permitted to operate during the state's shelter-in-place order.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva ordered gun shops in his jurisdiction to close immediately, while Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco tweeted that he considers them " 'essential' ... closing them and denying people the right to own a handgun is an obvious violation of the Second Amendment."

Gun and ammunition sales continue in San Bernardino County, while owners of gun shops in Orange County can decide for themselves whether they wish to stay open during the pandemic. San Diego County gun shops are open with conditions.

"Licensed firearm retailers provide a valuable safety service by performing background checks on guns and ammunition," San Diego County Sheriff William Gore wrote in a publicly posted message to gun stores.

Licensed gun sellers are permitted to conduct the legally required background checks to sell both guns and ammunition in California. While this bureaucratic process slows the sales process for some shop owners and consumers, it is a necessary step for the legal and safe sale of munitions some law enforcement leaders contend.

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"From a law enforcement perspective, we need to ensure that we do not create further public safety risks by driving lawful sales of firearms to an underground or off the books black market during these difficult times," Gore wrote.

Gore elected to keep gun shops open so that they can continue to play the important role of managing legally permitted sales. But if they choose to do so, he wrote, they need to comply with his county's orders on social distancing. Gore said "alternative sales options" like shop by appointment should be considered.

In neighboring Orange County, a spokesperson for that sheriff's department said they are directing businesses "to use their own judgment to whether they can remain operational while following social distancing guidelines."

San Bernardino County Sheriff's department spokesperson Jodi Miller said that department considers firearms retailers to be essential businesses “and are allowed to remain open.”

Villanueva, the L.A. County sheriff, closed ammunition and gun stores on Thursday, stating that they were not considered essential businesses. He has permitted stores to sell ammunition to security guard companies and is allowing those who need to pick up the firearms they purchased legally before the order was in place the opportunity to do so.

Villanueva's order applies to the 42 cities that contract with his department for police services also.

CAP Tactical Firearms, in Lawndale, Calif., said on a pre-recorded phone message that they began scheduling appointments for customers to pick up ammunition and guns for transactions that have already completed background checks. For those picking up, the recording stated, 9-foot social distancing will be mandated in the store.

"Please understand that these are trying times and we're doing the best we can to get through this," the recording states.

A salesperson at Martin B. Retting Inc. a firearms retailer in Culver City, said they're not processing any new purchases, only the sales that had been placed on hold before Villanueva's order.

Meanwhile, gun rights groups including the NRA, Second Amendment Foundation and the California Gun Rights Foundation filed suit against Villanueva, contending that keeping gun shops closed is a civil rights violation.

The plaintiffs filed the suit on Friday in the U.S. District Court's Central District of California. It asks a judge to declare that Newsom's executive order and Sheriff Villanueva's order to close gun shops both violate the constitutional rights of Californians. They are seeking damages to be determined in court and ask the judge to issue an injunction preventing county and state officials from enforcing the gun sales prohibition.

"Shuttering access to arms necessarily shutters the constitutional right to those arms," the complaint reads. "By forcing California’s duly licensed, essential businesses to close or eliminate key services for the general public, California authorities are foreclosing the only lawful means to buy, sell, and transfer firearms and ammunition available to typical, law-abiding Californians."

Firearms fire sale

In counties where gun shops remain open, demand is pushing businesses to their limits.

Second Amendment Sports, a firearms retailer with locations in California and Arizona, including a shop in Palm Desert, posted on its website that its various sites have been receiving more phone calls related to sales than they can possibly handle.

In the first week of March, one of its four stores received 661 calls. Last week they received 15,231 calls. They were able to answer about half, they reported, despite their best efforts.

"The calls are coming in fast and furious," the post on Second Amendment Sports' website reads. "That is 23x call volume increase. No way on God's green earth could we handle that or handle it well. We do wish we could have though, to settle or allay everyone's fears and worries."

Discount Gun Mart and Gunfighter Tactical, both located in San Diego had pre-recorded messages on their phone lines telling customers they are open, but receiving a surge in business and that employees are not immediately available to answer phones.

Gunfighter Tactical's prerecorded message said they will only be allowing five customers in the store at a time and asked that customers maintain a 6-foot distance from others while shopping.

Emily Atkinson of Ade's Gun, in Orange, Calif., said that store's inventory is selling faster than ever.

When the coronavirus scare started, she said, the small "mom and pop" shop sold its handgun inventory in five days. That would have taken months in normal conditions, she said. The next shipment of 36 guns sold out in five hours. And Atkinson expects the same for the next shipment, which she expects by Monday.

The surge of customers, for the most part, are first-time buyers, Atkinson said, and she's had to provide a lot of education on the gun-buying process.

"We're getting inundated with newcomers that need to take the safety course before they can even think about purchasing a firearm," Atkinson said.

Atkinson has also had to tell callers from Los Angeles County that they can't process online orders from neighboring counties. She's hoping to provide for her local customers for as long as she can, but said the Orange County Sheriff's Department could implement restrictions at any time.

Storm Jenkins, owner of Guns of Distinction in Palm Desert, said Saturday that his store has done about twice as much business in the past 10 days as it did all of last year.

He said almost all of the surge can be attributed to first-time buyers looking to purchase firearms because of the coronavirus.

"They've told me they're worried about social unrest and about whether police departments will respond to certain types of calls for service," Jenkins said. "We try to reassure them and get them something they're satisfied with. It's been exhausting."