On the Westside of Los Angeles County, Culver City’s leaders decided they had a problem with guns, or to be more precise, a gun shop problem. The family-owned gun retail store, Martin B. Retting, which opened 65 years ago, was in their sights.

Similar to other gun stores outside of the borders of the City of Los Angeles, the gun store's existence proved to be a legal problem.

The Gun-Free School Zone Act, passed by the U.S. Senate in February 1990 and later signed into law by President George H.W. Bush made it illegal for a person to have or use a gun in a ‘school zone’, an area defined as within 1,000 feet of a public or private school.

Despite the federal ruling and after a flurry of school shootings across the country in 2005, cities like Culver City felt the need to adopt the Distance Separation. An ordinance that is often used to prevent the concentration of certain businesses in any one area, as seen with ‘adult-oriented businesses’ in Bakersfield, California.

Martin B. Retting is located just 800 feet from La Ballona Elementary School, a clear violation of the intent of the federal act as well as the city’s ordinance, as many parents and local residents noted in recent years.

But the 65-year-old shop with its paintings of a large rifle gun and merchandising signs on its facade and roof remained due to the ‘grandfather clause'. Merchants weren’t allowed to open new gun shops, but an old one had the right to stay. For 32 years, since the school zone act went into effect, Culver City couldn’t stop the sale of firearms.

But some in the city recognized an opportunity when the two owners of Martin B. Retting decided to retire and sell the property. The owners hoped to transfer the shops ‘grandfathered’ rights to sell guns to a new owner in a bidding process.

Bidding processes sometimes bring surprises. One being Culver City itself.

Using taxpayer funds, City Hall put in a $6.5 million bid, and won. It leads to a question: What does a city with a strong belief in gun regulation do as the owner of a gun shop?

The simple answer seems to be that it closes it down and builds something else. The Culver City model for how gun control-friendly cities in California and beyond can respond to fights over the Second Amendment and the nation’s complex relationship to guns and make some people work a little harder to legally buy them.

“The Constitution and the Bill of Rights should be a living, breathing document and should be considered and reconsidered based on advancements in society, whether it be the technology of weapons or social norms,” said Culver City’s Council Member, Dan O’Brien. “When the founders wrote the Second Amendment, they didn't know how advanced the technology would go with firearms. Limiting the capacity of them; limiting who can bear arms based on their mental emotional status, the 10-day wait for gun purchases. A lot of the things that California has put in place are critical to ensuring the safe right to bear arms.”

Past to Present

In Culver City these days, people passing in front of 11029 Washington Blvd, might notice the dirty eggshell white facade’s still show a mural of a shotgun and the word, "GUNS," but the store’s days are numbered.

On the door and windows below, there is a gratitude letter and a sign that says, ‘Closed To Regular Business’.

Culver City’s Instagram page announced on Sept. 14 of 2023 that the new owners want to have the building’s gun imagery painted over following the completion of the sale. “A robust community input process will help determine the future use of the property,” according to the post.

One of the straying considerations during this input process is the possibility of a homeless shelter being the former retail gun store’s replacement.

“There's a strong community belief that we should try to put affordable housing in there, which is part of it,” said O’Brien. “Maybe some mixed use element. But affordable housing is a need in the community. So we're going to engage the public and see what we can come up with.”

With other cities in Los Angeles County, there’s a unanimous agreement that each city should do what they think is best for their own community, creating a discrepancy between them with gun policies and zonal ordinances.

“As far as the City of Los Angeles, you’ll need to speak with someone over there about what they do and don’t allow in relation to firearms,” said Jonathan Jones, The City of Burbank’s Communications Manager.

A similar statement was made by O’Brien.

“I don't have any opinion on what other cities do,” said O’Brien, Council Member of Culver City. “The other cities got to do what they think is right for their communities.”

However, the trend setting city council member says that his mission for Culver City gun control is one that adds value to purchasing firearms.

“We need to make purchasing a gun an important decision for someone and not make it quite so easy,” said O’Brien. “If we didn't have so many gun stores on every-” he caught himself, “They're not on every corner, but if they're not quite so readily available.”

He wants to make it less accessible to purchase a gun in Culver City.

“If someone has to drive an extra 10 or 20 miles to get their gun, maybe they'll think twice about whether or not they need it,” said O’Brien.

GUN WORLD?

Culver City isn’t the only place in Los Angeles County that is wrestling with its gun legacy.

In Burbank, visitors drop in on a store with a blue facade with the words, “Guns World” above the door inside. Behind the counter was the owner of the store saying the fate of Martin B. Retting has repercussions for gun stores across Los Angeles County.

Modern Day Image of Gun World. Photo Courtesy of Spartacus Smith.

The Gun World store owner, who declined to share his name, said that “Burbank recently rewrote the zoning codes to do pretty much the same thing as Culver City.”

A small city known for its plentiful consolidation of firearm stores along Magnolia Blvd. is facing new rules that would make it so that only a tiny percentage of the area in Burbank could legally house gun stores because of restrictions that require them to not be there.

In July of 2023, Burbank adopted a second extension of Urgency Ordinance No. 22-3,977. This imposed a temporary prohibition of new or replacement firearms retailers in the City of Burbank. With the Moratorium in place, The City Council also established zoning regulations for firearm retailers through updating on the Zone Text Amendment.

In the city of Burbank, there are 14 establishments licensed to sell firearms and ammunition, according to the City's Attorney’s synopsis in 2023. While neighboring cities of Glendale and Pasadena have less than 10 establishments within each, Burbank has the most retailers of firearms and ammunition per capita with the rate of one firearms store per every 7,386 residents.

According to Jones, the city currently has the moratorium “to allow staff time to study and consider enactment of zooming measures.”

In a Burbank City Council meeting on December 5th 2023, plans were revealed for said measures. The distance from the designated "residential zones" and "sensitive areas," which retail gun stores must adhere to, is three choices that will be determined later.

At maximum, the future placement of gun stores while adhering to the appropriate separation distance will allow their location to be within only 3% of the city's total land area, and at the very least, almost 1% if that option is chosen.

As far as the gun stores in the city of Burbank, many of them feel reassured with their standing, but anxious for the future of firearm retail stores.

“I mean, we're going to be grandfathered in,” said the owner of Gun World. “But if the gun stores lose their lease or what have you, they won't be able to just move down the street or next door. So [the city] is going to get rid of the gun stores by attrition.”

Five blocks up Magnolia Blvd. is another ‘grandfathered in’ firearms store known as "Guns Direct". Small in width, married neutral with grays and pitch black windows, the store is almost unnoticeable in comparison to Gun World, but shares a reputation despite its size.

Co-owner, James Janya expresses there is a general miscommunication between most of the anti-gun people of california and firearms stores. One perpetuated by the media.

“Whenever I do an interview, there is always backlash,” said Janya. “It’s always about feelings instead of a conversation about what is right and wrong.”

According to Janya, the facts are that it is not as easy to get a gun, especially in California.

“There is a lot of information needed to even obtain guns such as needing a firearm safety card,” he said. “In California, you can only purchase one handgun every 30 days, and that’s only talking about a handgun. There are other policies as well.”

Glossing over how the limitation of single gun within a month purchase can hurt gun stores as a business, Janya explains how his confusion is with the associated blame.

“How come when it comes to a criminal there is a slap on the wrist for their improper usage of guns, but with gun stores, they are seen as a villain without redemption.”

Some gun stores were able to avoid such animosity, as seen with the firearms customs shop Modern Warrior Gunsmithing.

The ability to stay under the radar matters, especially in Culver City. Unlike the firearms retail store of Martin B. Retting, Modern Warrior Gunsmithing is private and scheduled by appointment bases.

It is a small location with a sign the size of a 50 inch television compared to the mural on Martin B. Retting. Within this miniature black sign is a dark gray samurai holding a rifle of hardly a lighter shade, a sign that is invisible at night.

As one of the two remaining gun stores left in Culver City with a Federal Firearm License, also known as a FFL-license. Smaller gun stores were "a lot less high profile,” according to Niko Furlan, an employee at Modern Warrior Gunsmithing.

“Martin B. Retting may have received more backlash and public outcry as they are a publicly accessible gun store,” said Furlan. “They're large and famous and have big billboards.”

To some, it is less about the legality of the firearms stores, but about the visibility of them in today’s climate.

“For the city council to be reelected or to have a successful quote on quote, ‘political career’,” Furlan said. “They need to make it appear to their voters that they're doing something important for the city.”

To Furlan, the majority of Culver City residents are anti-gun, which is why they supported City Council’s decision to buy out his competition despite the high price for such commercial real estate. In his eyes, the purchase was a part of a "political win."

“The city council decided it would be worth wasting taxpayer money to… make themselves feel like they're doing something for the city.”

The five-member council voted to buy the store, while school parents and advocates for gun control in Culver City argued that the price was worth it to get a gun store out.

Furlan believes the action of buying the firearms store was a political move.

“Constantly the firearms industry is under attack here in California. It's under attack federally and is under attack locally,” he said.

California’s Distrust in Gun Stores

As of the recent decade, guns have become a topic of debate. A subject of safety concerns, crimes, and violation of what some say is their amendment right of bare arms.

To look at the numbers, as of 2021, suicides accounted for more than half of the U.S. deaths in association with guns. Do statistics like these have any correlation to the treatment of retail firearm stores?

According to Gilford’s Law Center, the rates of suicide caused by firearms have been reduced by almost 11% due to the waiting period laws made for purchasing firearms.

Outside of the numbers coincided with suicide inflicted by guns, waiting period laws also appear to reduce gun homicide rates. A study found in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said that, “waiting period laws that delay the purchase of firearms by a few days can reduce gun homicides by roughly 17%.”

Nonetheless, what creates the most distrust in gun stores is the rise in active shooter incidents in the U.S. in recent years.

A high number of active shooter incidents occurred in 2020, with 40 incidents to be exact. In 2021, there were 61 incidents—a third more than the year before.

A lot of these incidents draw questions of how such an event was possible, many of the thoughts leading to the origins of the source: the guns and the location of where they were purchased.

Of the type of guns involved in U.S. gun murders and nonnegligent manslaughters, handguns account for 59% of the data available from 2020, the most recent year for which the FBI has published data.

With controversy over what type of guns create these horrific shootings, this is shared with the dealers of the guns.

The top dealers of "crime guns," which are defined by AB 1191 as "recovered firearms that are illegally possessed, have been used in a crime, or are suspected of having been used in a crime," are listed in a recent report published by The California Department of Justice.

Martin B. Retting, a former gun dealer, came in at number nine among the top 10 dealers of crime guns, with 1019 crime guns, 69,081 total firearms sold, and 1.48% of the 2% total that was made up of criminal guns. However, other gun retail establishments, such as Burbank's ‘Gun World’, rose from 15th to 14th place after Martin B. Retting ceased operations.

With 619 crime guns, 47,115 total firearms sold, and 1.31% of the 2% total that was made up of criminal guns is Gun World in Burbank, California. One of the few stores possibly considered in taking the place of the inactive dealer.

But the state of California differs in terms of its gun use, according to Furlan.

“Compared to most of the country, the gun culture out here is more focused on self defense, more focused on high levels of training and proficiency in regards to defensive use of firearms, as opposed to a large chunk of the country, which defensive use of a firearm kind of takes a backseat to sporting use.”

In other parts of the country, such as states in the south, most of the use of firearms is for hunting animals.

“A lot of people will have rifles that are better suited for that kind of activity than it is for people buying AR15 semiautomatic rifles and pistols for defensive use,” said Furlan. “While out here [in California], there is a hunting community and a hunting culture, but it is not as prevalent as it is in most of the country.”

Due to the difference in most firearm use in California, it is predominantly used in training, specifically for law enforcement and the military.

According to 24/7WallSt.com, The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is the second-largest police department in the country, right behind the New York Police Department, and is one of the most well-funded law enforcement communities.

Considered a gold standard in regards to size, funding, and training organizations, it is the training that boils down to the higher funding of the police force that trickles into the gun culture of California. But on the back side, illicit and illegal use of firearms is tied to the legislation on firearms in California.

“It is more difficult for criminal elements to get their hands on certain firearms here, so there is a certain allure to the kinds of guns that are hard to get in California that are used generally for criminal purposes,” said Furlan. “These guns can be purchased in different states for example, but a modern American gang culture started in L.A. that carries with it the allure of firearms that are more difficult to get here through legislation.”

To higher ups, such as council members, the problem lies in the lack of agreement between states with their gun control policies.

“California has some of the most stringent gun laws in the country, if not the most,” said O’Brien. “So it'd be great if other states would follow the same path. And that way we can have some consistency. People can purchase firearms in one state under a certain set of laws and then bring them over to California not under another set of laws.”

But ultimately a shared consensus is that the problem is not the firearms themselves nor the retailers who offer them, but the people who wield them.

“Enforcing the laws we have on the books and trying to make it more difficult for people who shouldn't have weapons to not have them is critical,” said O’Brien.

Confusion and Fear Creates Gun Sales

Despite anti-gun decisions in California, gun sales have never faltered, only continuing to rise, reaching a record high of sales in 2020, during a global pandemic.

“Every gun store in the greater L.A. area was extremely busy,” said Furlan. “For an example, so many guns were sold, especially here locally, that most gun stores, including Turner's Outdoorsman, a big corporate store with a lot of money, a lot of funding, a lot of connections behind it, ran out of guns and they ran out of guns very, very quickly. “Most gun stores in the Los Angeles area during that time had four or five, six hour lines to get through to buy.”

But what spurred this was people’s reaction to the events of that time.

“Particularly during the summer of 2020, many people experienced a lot of unrest, due to the whole George Floyd situation,” said Furlan. “You had a lot of rioting here and a lot of looting here. You had a lot of politics and I guess you could say racial violence in L.A. A lot of businesses were burned down and there was a lot of mayhem happening. A lot of places boarded up. And people were really scared and it is fear that sells guns.”

NEVER forget the riots of 2020!
• Atlanta
• Chicago
• Kenosha
• LA
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• Minneapolis
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• Washington DChttps://t.co/9UaRnhUe2L pic.twitter.com/Tp7tb1XWHK

— Sher (@Sherrry2023) December 4, 2022

Alongside the 2020 riots, the climax of gun sales was spurred by other things, like the global pandemic, creating what he called a ‘perfect storm for gun sales’.

“COVID spooked a lot of people,” said Furlan. “The supply chain situation that came along with that as well as the national unrest spooked a lot of people around the country, especially here in Los Angeles.”

Another thing that has generated gun sales historically since the 1980s is the year of an election, or what Furlan calls a ‘gun store’s year’.

“You see a spike in gun sales as people don't know who's going to be elected,” said Furlan. “They don't know whether an incoming firearms ban of some sort might come down the line so people tend to stock up before those election years end.”

To the point where hundreds of guns were being sold at every store per day, the rush of firearm sales is synonymous to human nature.

“In like a standpoint of selling firearms here as there's a lot of different groups of people,” said Furlan. "And with that, carries a different culture and ideas around weapons and firearms in general."