Riverside County gun sales' 154 percent jump in 10 years far outpaces population growth

Across Riverside County, gun sales are booming at a much faster rate than the population is growing.

A surge in recent gun violence and fatal shootings in the Coachella Valley points to the ubiquity of guns in the community, most of them legal and legally owned.

From 2000 to 2010, the county's firearm sales increased more than 154 percent, state figures show. The county's population, meanwhile, grew by 42 percent over the same time.

In all, more than 169,500 handguns, rifles and shotguns were sold in the county during the past decade.

Just last year, a record 24,072 firearms were sold in Riverside County, including 11,611 handguns.

“I'm always amazed by how many guns are sold in the Coachella Valley,” said Mark Wasserkrug, president of the Guns of Distinction gun shop in Palm Desert.

Wasserkrug tells his customers there's likely a greater chance their purchases will be stolen than used for self-defense.

“To think about all these guns that are out there and you think about the potential of burglaries, it's scary,” he said.

Since Nov. 2, the valley has recorded a string of high-profile incidents involving guns, some fatal.

Nine days ago, a 2-year-old girl and her 24-year-old father were shot multiple times and killed after a dispute with their next-door neighbor in Palm Desert.

The neighbor accused in the shooting, Juan Carlos Alcala, worked as a security guard and did not have a criminal record. Authorities have declined to say whether Alcala owned the gun used in the attack, but they have not suggested it was illegally obtained.

Four people have been killed and at least seven others wounded, including a 2-month-old boy, in two apparently unrelated Cathedral City shootings.

In February, a 4-year-old boy, Adam Noah De Leon, was hit in the stomach by a stray bullet from a gun battle near his Indio home. A suspect arrested in that shooting, Javontae Garcia, has no known ties to gangs and no major criminal police history, police said.

Indio police say they've recovered multiple handguns in their investigation of the shooting, but it's not yet clear whether the suspect used or legally owned any of them.
On Wednesday, a 19-year-old Coachella man was shot in the chest. Authorities suspect his 17-year-old neighbor to be the shooter.

Indio resident Adam De Leon said the “freak” shooting of his son, who has since recovered, has convinced him too many guns have wound up in the wrong hands.

“I just want (the police) to hit every house” and seize as many unlawfully possessed guns as possible, De Leon said last week.

The Dec. 7 “Operation Eastern Encore” anti-gang police sweep across Indio and parts of La Quinta and Coachella took more than 100 firearms off the streets.

The majority of those and other firearms seized by Indio police are models that could legally be purchased — not assault weapons, modified guns or other guns banned under state law, Indio police Capt. Richard Bitonti said.

State regulations

Even as local gun sales spike, California regulates gun ownership with some of the strictest laws in the nation, limiting purchases to one handgun per month and requiring buyers to pass a safety test.

Palm Desert resident and gun owner Dick Folkers said he worries about the “misuse and abuse” of firearms, but he's also confident the state's laws effectively promote gun safety.

Having more responsible, legal gun owners armed is not worrisome, Folkers said.

“Unfortunately, law enforcement agencies cannot always respond as fast as they'd like or the citizens would like,” he said.

Desert Hot Springs Police Chief Pat Williams said most guns used in valley violent crimes were typically stolen in home burglaries or purchased on the black market.

“That's why it's so important for people to be so vigilant about their property if they do possess guns,” Williams said.

Sheriff's Capt. Raymond Gregory agreed. While gun sales “could logically relate to availability to criminals,” Gregory's more concerned that owners safely handle their firearms.

“The number (of gun sales) isn't so important as far as when we see trends” of gun accidents, or crimes involving stolen guns, said Gregory, who oversees the sheriff's Indio station.

In a statement, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department said the rise in handgun sales is “not disproportionate to the gun sales statistics in every county nationwide.”

However, a department spokesperson later said that's based on federal FBI statistics. The FBI keeps data on background checks for those looking to buy firearms but not on actual sales, bureau officials said. The U.S. has seen a nearly 69 percent increase in those checks from 2000 to 2010.

The number of guns sold isn't the same as the number of guns owned. But officials with the California Department of Justice say the sales records are the best statistics available related to gun ownership because the state doesn't require that most firearms be registered.

Federal gun laws

Wasserkrug, who's been in business since 2006 and at his Palm Desert location since 2008, attributes the sustained increase in gun sales in recent years to fears President Obama could change federal gun laws.

In 2008, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government couldn't ban handguns but could tightly regulate their ownership, fears rose that Obama would push for stricter gun laws after his election. Gun outlets across the country reported running out of merchandise.

“It was amazing,” said Wasserkrug, whose business also saw a “significant” spike. “The concern was Obama was anti-gun.”

There have been no major changes to the nation's gun laws under Obama to date, but the concern looms amid gun rights advocates, he said.

Wasserkrug said his business saw a similar bump after Gov. Jerry Brown's election in November.

Many new customers are pointing to the threat of public safety cutbacks as the reason they're buying a firearm, he added.

“Everybody's just trying to protect themselves ... but I think it's falling into the wrong hands,” said De Leon, the father of the boy who was shot. “Everybody has a gun now.”


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Marcel Honoré covers government affairs for The Desert Sun. Reach him at (760) 778-4649 or marcel.honore@thedesertsun.comMarcel Honoré  The Desert Sun