So she found herself at Jones’ Fort to buy a five-shot. Living alone at age 67, she was recently spooked when her dog started barking as if someone were lurking outside. But after running a gift shop in Santa Barbara, she moved to Redding six years ago to retire. For most of her life, she never considered owning a firearm. Only three hours from the liberal, ethnically diverse and generally upscale Bay Area, it’s a world away.Ĭandy Shelly understands both sides of the cultural chasm. Nestled along Interstate 5 between Sacramento and Oregon amid some of the state’s most rugged forests, Redding is heavily white, Republican and working-class. The deep gun divide between urban and rural America is as clear in Redding as the snow-capped peaks visible from downtown. He’s buying back AR-15-type semi-automatic rifles - at least those that aren’t already banned under the state’s assault-weapons law - at twice the price he sold them just a few months ago, knowing that he can charge customers even more because manufacturers can’t make them fast enough. Still, the talk in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento of more gun laws has sent firearms and ammunition flying off the shelves at the vice mayor’s gun store. “They don’t like being told by government entities that they can’t own a certain thing,” said Rich Howell, general manager of Redding’s Olde West pawnshop and gun store, where ducks, heads of bucks, pictures of bucking broncos and racks upon racks of long guns adorn the walls.īut Howell and others concede the county’s gun culture has endured, even thrived, despite the restrictions - at least so far. Whether or not they need, or even want, assault weapons and large-capacity magazines isn’t really the point, many Shasta residents say. And it has outlawed ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 bullets since 2000. It has required background checks on all gun sales since 1991. That’s because residents here already live with many of the same gun controls that polls show most Americans believe should be imposed nationwide after mass shootings like those in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn.Ĭalifornia has banned “assault weapons” since 1989. “It’s just normal up here.”Īs part of deep-blue California, Shasta County could be a window into gun-loving America’s future. “We like shooting,” said Redding Vice Mayor Patrick Henry Jones, whose family-owned shop sells about 250 guns a month. It’s a place where the public firing range on a sunny weekend day seems as crowded as a Bay Area Apple Store the sheriff has doled out 12 times as many concealed-weapon permits as there are in Los Angeles County and one of the county seat’s top elected officials owns one of the area’s biggest gun stores. Just ask the residents of Shasta County, the gun-buying capital of the Golden State. REDDING - Imagine plopping a dark-red Texas county deep in the heart of California and forcing the Texans to abide by tough gun laws.
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