For more than a decade, Goodland Guns has been operating out of a storefront space in Goleta, California's Old Town district. After the owner of the building recently doubled the rent, though, store owner Daniel Ashton decided to look for another location his business could call home.
He found a spot a few miles away: a property that had sat vacant for years. Ashton says it had been plagued by trespassing, drug use, vandalism, and even human defecation, but since he took it over and installed a security fence and other infrastructure the "behavior has completely ceased."
You'd think the folks in Ashton's new community would be thrilled with that development. Instead, they're trying to force him out of his new location because a daycare is located on the other side of that fence.
As one local recently complained in the Santa Barbara Independent:
On Sunday morning, my book club group chat started pinging with the news that Goodland Guns was opening next door to the preschool of choice for many families in the Santa Barbara Shores neighborhood and other parts of Goleta. Two of the women in the book club send their preschoolers — both aged 3 — to Here We Grow.
The moms started making plans, as moms do, and within hours, they had researched zoning laws and permitting processes, planned a meeting with a city councilmember, started an email campaign, and mobilized dozens of other parents in the area to use their brainpower and resources to come up with ways to stop Goodland Guns from opening in the proposed location. (We would rather it not open anywhere in Goleta or Santa Barbara at all, but if it must, how about literally anywhere else? There’s a Goodland Guns on Calle Real, near my house, and while I’m not crazy about it, its neighbors are a gas station and a marijuana store, two places not known for catering to toddlers.)
My friends with children enrolled at Here We Grow also said if the gun store does open, they’ll find another place to send their kids. The lucky parents will have that option. Others won’t, and they’ll have to send their babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners to play where nothing but a fence separating the kids from a building full of handguns, rifles, and ammunition. As any parent knows, it’s hard enough to find childcare that’s affordable, convenient, and safe without contending with an actual gun store one lot over. Here We Grow’s business will suffer, too, of course.
A vacant building with squatters, drug users, and poopers is a much better fit for the neighborhood than a gun store? Give me a break.
What, exactly, are these parents worried about? Toddlers taking an unauthorized field trip to the gun store next door? Or is the concern that customers who have already passed a background check and complied with California's waiting period suddenly become a threat the moment they leave the store?
I've seen a lot of complaints, but no one has really articulated what their problem is other than "these are two incompatible uses next to one another."
The column never identifies an actual risk created by the store itself. Not one instance of misconduct by Goodland Guns. Not one violation of state law. Not one example of a licensed gun retailer endangering nearby children. Instead, we're supposed to assume the mere existence of a gun store is itself a public hazard.
If the mere proximity of a lawful business to a preschool is enough to justify driving that business out of the neighborhood, what's the limiting principle? Should we prohibit pharmacies because children could obtain prescription drugs? Liquor stores? Banks because they can attract robberies? Or are gun stores being singled out not because of any evidence of harm, but simply because of opposition to the lawful product they sell?
There's a line in Anderson's diatribe that gives away her real objection: "We would rather it not open anywhere in Goleta or Santa Barbara at all."
Later, Anderson writes "Our zoning laws should not allow a firearms dealer to be located next door to a preschool. I can’t believe I’m even writing that sentence. It’s so obvious I feel like I just failed a persuasive writing assignment."
Well, if I were grading her column like it was a persuasive writing assignment, she would fail, because she offers no real argument other than "this is wrong." Some ideas seem "obvious" until you ask them to explain themselves. That's the problem here. The column repeatedly insists that a gun store next to a preschool is self-evidently unacceptable, but never demonstrates why this particular business poses a unique danger.
Anderson writes that a doctor friend of hers whose child goes to the pre-school offered his take on why Goodland Guns shouldn't be allowed to open at its new location.
“From a public health perspective, introducing more firearms into a strained healthcare infrastructure is a dangerous catalyst for poor community outcomes. As a physician practicing in Santa Barbara and Goleta, I urge us to recognize that more guns inevitably lead to higher rates of violent crime and accidental injuries. One could argue ‘guns aren’t the problem,’ but they definitely don’t help — and certainly not next to a daycare.”
Again, that's an argument that no gun stores (or guns) should be available in the community, and the good doctor lost that argument way back in 1791.
Ashton has signed a 25-year lease on the new location, and is planning a soft launch in early September. Anderson and other anti-gun residents, meanwhile, are still hoping for a gun control miracle.
Maybe parents will roar loudly enough to stop Goodland Guns from opening next door to their kids’ preschool. Maybe an attorney will magically find a winning argument. Maybe the city council will find a loophole and block the business. Maybe there’s still time to appeal the permit that was granted to the gun retailer.
Maybe it won’t work, and Goodland Guns will open its doors next to Here We Grow, and we’ll all feel sick knowing that our federal, state, and local laws allowed that to happen. Our children deserve better than a chain-link fence between their playground and a gun store.
Goodland Guns has followed the law. It's obtained the required approvals. It invested in a neglected property and, according to its owner, eliminated a longstanding nuisance. Yet Anderson and others still insist the business doesn't belong, and that's clearly because they object to the lawful product it sells, not because of anything it has done. It's a terrible argument, and Anderson and her pals should be embarrassed for making it.
