Two BMWs, a Lexus, a Volvo station wagon, two late-model Jeeps and one gray Porsche Turbo are parked outside Gun World/Target Range, a store and firing range in Van Nuys. Most bear vanity license plates, some with the owners’ initials, others with their vocations: “MS FX,” “MOVIEBIZ,” “MD3.” It turns out that the cars are better identified than their owners. At least here.
“No names,” said a woman identifying herself as a 37-year-old entertainment lawyer. She was wearing an Armani jacket, a cashmere sweater, Donna Karan jeans and blue suede loafers, and she was carrying a Smith & Wesson 686 revolver at the target range, where Hollywood hones its marksmanship.
“Everybody in L.A. has a gun,” said another patron, who described himself as a medical professional and gave his age as 48, but not his name. He was wearing a raw-silk shirt under a Gaultier jacket and was carrying a Sphinx AT-2000 semiautomatic pistol. “Nobody talks about it,” he said.
Sonny Jones, the editor of Women and Guns, a magazine published in Bellevue, Wash., calls unacknowledged gun possession “the dirty little secret in the liberal closet.”
“There have always been a certain number of so-called liberals who own guns,” she said, “but that number is growing. The L.A. riots brought the self-defense issue home.”
Retailers like Paul Cole, the owner of Gun World and six other gun stores in the Los Angeles area, said they noticed a jump in sales in the weeks after the Los Angeles riots last spring. “It was crazy busy for about two months,” he said.
Indeed, the California State Department of Justice noted a nearly 46 percent increase in the number of applications statewide for the purchase of guns of all kinds in the four weeks after the riots, compared with the same period in 1991, said Shelley Rife, a section manager for the department’s firearms program. From May 1 through 31, she said, 58,311 applications were received, compared with 40,001 for the same period in 1991. The run on guns tapered off after May, and it was back to business as usual.
While sociologists have found that the stigma of guns decreases when crime-or the perception of crime and chaos-increases, one expert, Gary Kleck, is skeptical of gun retailers’ claims that the demographics of gun ownership have recently shifted, with more women and upper-middle-class people choosing to bear small arms.
“The perception of rising crime gives people a rationale,” said Kleck, author of “Point Blank” (Aldine de Gruyter, 1991), a book on guns and violence in America. But of the retailers’ reports, he added: “I detect a note of wishful thinking in these claims. The gun market went slack in the ’80s, and the industry is looking for new markets.”
There have long been gun owners “who describe themselves as liberal and don’t fit the typical right-wing, reactionary, sexist, racist, rural hick, socially backward, gun-owner stereotype,” he added.
To some, handguns seem to be a fashion accessory or status symbol. Akin to Sharper Image-style technotoys, socially acceptable pistols cost $500 and up.
“In the past few months, I’ve been shocked to find out that some of my best friends actually own guns,” said Mick Jackson, director of the movie “L.A. Story.” “Nice, peaceable, otherwise sane people, talking about their Glock this, their Beretta that, like any other status symbol.”
Except that, unlike most status symbols, guns can kill.
The 1991 edition of National Safety Council Accident Facts says that 1,400 people were killed accidentally by firearms in 1990. Longtime gun owners are quick to point out that in the same year, there were 46,300 accidental vehicular deaths. Those who have become gun owners more recently, particularly the wealthy and socially conscious, may be less likely to discount the danger of guns. But they may also be more likely to play up the connoisseur potential.
Targeting new customers
Take the two well-dressed young men sitting in the lounge at the Hotel Bel-Air one evening recently.
“Smooth polymer, not the classic wood grain, but, ahh, the feel in hand,” one said.
“It’s smooth and solid, but I’m wondering how it will age,” the other said. “I like the patina in the older styles.”
They were discussing a Beretta semiautomatic, not a fine Bordeaux. Connoisseurship seems to smooth the rough edges of a divided social conscience. And so does the conviction that one needs a gun.
The type of guns bought has changed since the 1950s, said Elizabeth Swasey, director of women’s issues and information for the National Rifle Association in Washington. Forty years ago, handguns accounted for only one of every five guns sold; the others were rifles or shotguns. Today, half are handguns.
Gun retailers say they have noticed a shift among first-time buyers. “Ten years ago, the first-time buyer bought the gun his father used,” said Ken Jorgensen, the manager of public relations for Smith & Wesson in Springfield, Mass. “Now we’re seeing a lot more advertising-driven buying.”
And gun-magazine advertisers are playing to the buyers’ sense of style and vanity (the fear of being dowdy) and insecurity (the fear of being vulnerable).
“Light and lithe, the Hammerli 280,” read an ad in Women and Guns that sounded as though it could have been a promotion for a diet dairy treat. “Be safe, feminine and stylish!” read another ad, for Love Leathers, a company in Vancouver, Wash., that makes gun purses and pistol fanny packs.
But other firearms sales pitches keep their sights only on the fear-for-your-life target. “Precious possessions,” read the caption under a picture of Davis handguns arranged with a string of pearls and several $100 bills.
Selling the image
No matter what kind of paranoia they appeal to, gun ads seem to trouble Cole. “There used to be personal taste involved in selecting a firearm,” sighed the retailer, who also deals in collectors guns. “Now guns are trendy, like everything else.”
Image is becoming an important part of a pistol. Until recently, styles in guns, as in Mercedes automobiles, were slow to change. But technical breakthroughs and a move by gun manufacturers to create a modicum of stylistic obsolesence in what was once a lifetime purchase have changed that.
Most gun dealers say that about five years ago Glock, an Austrian gun company, made the first style statement since John Browning designed the modern revolver more than 100 years ago. “Glock came up with a sleek plastic-bottom and steel-tipped model that became the ultimate yuppie gun,” Cole said. In its esthetics, the Glock 19 is reminiscent of Philippe Starck teapots. The German Sig Sauer P226, a sleek, modern, 9-millimeter semiautomatic, makes wood-handle revolvers seem as quaint as Matt Dillon. Apparently, the look is appealing. “The Sig Sauer is the Rolex of guns today,” Cole said.
The LadySmith, a small .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, is popular among women buying for the first time, as is the slightly larger Smith & Wesson 49 with a bobbed hammer. “Women don’t want the hammer getting caught on something in their purse,” Cole said.
No impulse buying
Most guns are sold by private dealers and gun stores, so the possibility of being smitten by a Smith & Wesson 629 Classic while shopping for socks is limited. A first-time gun buyer is generally committed to getting a gun before embarking on a buying mission.
Those determined to acquire are undaunted. Those determined to carry a loaded pistol must often get government permission; carrying a concealed weapon in California, for example, requires a permit from local law-enforcement agencies.
Most plan to spend about $500. They end up spending about half that much on instruction. The National Rifle Association recommends at least 90 minutes of personal instruction. It also offers a 12-hour personal protection program, covering the care and handling of guns.
