Dan Ashton looked for two years to find a new spot for his business Goodland Guns after his landlord raised his rent, and finally found a location he could call home earlier this year. Ashton's move was approved by staff for the city of Goleta, California earlier this year, and Goodland Guns is set to officially open the doors at its new location in just a few weeks.
Goleta city council members, the mayor, and some residents are now trying to convince Ashton to keep those doors closed and look for another spot for his shop. They contend that the building, located next door to a daycare, is inappropriate for a gun store because of its proximity to kids.
We first covered Ashton's story in early August, and in the weeks since the campaign to convince him to move has ramped up. Goleta officials are now looking at introducing new zoning restrictions for gun stores, but those wouldn't retroactively apply to Goodland Guns. At this point, Ashton's detractors don't have a lot of weapons to deploy against him, so they're simply trying to shame him into backing down.
“None of the council knew anything about this,” city councilmember Stuart Kasdin said. “I found out about it when there was a discussion on Nextdoor.” He learned in late July that city staff had treated the store’s relocation from Old Town Goleta as a permitting matter because existing rules did not require public notification.
According to Kasdin, city officials did not anticipate the level of community reaction which, he said, illustrated the difference between the technical requirements of the law and the broader intent behind city policies.
“There should have been some recognition that guns are not the same thing as backpacks,” Kasdin said in the meeting.
... “We’ll see what the implications of the new ordinance are,” Kasdin said. “The owner will have to decide if this influences his decisions. But the outcome is hard to predict right now.”
It's not actually difficult to predict. Ashton signed a 25-year lease with his new landlord, and it doesn't sound like he's going anywhere despite the attempts at emotional blackmail directed at him.
On of the most moving moments came as Christy Zewick read a letter written by her 11-year-old daughter, Charlotte: “I’ve heard about things called school shootings, where people shoot a bunch of kids,” Charlotte wrote. “Having a gun shop next to preschool and close to an elementary school, I feel like that’s kind of just setting up for a school shooting if somebody felt like that was a really good thing to do.”
What on earth is Zewick telling her daughter to make her feel that way (if in fact it was her daughter who wrote that letter and not Zewick herself)? Has she explained to her kid that school shootings are incredibly rare to begin with, and there's never been a school shooting that involved a perpetrator going directly from a gun shop to a school?
I doubt it. It looks to me like Zewick wants her daughter to be afraid, in the hope that her child's fear will tug at Ashton's heartstrings and convince him to step away from his store's new location.
How about this: if the owner of the nearby daycare and her customers are so freaked out by Ashton's business, why don't they look for a new place to operate? They're the ones with the problem, so shouldn't it be up to them to come up with a solution?
Ashton's been very patient with his critics. He's explained that before he leased the space, the building had sat vacant for some time, which invited drug users and vagrants to treat the property as their personal playground. There'll be more security around the building with the gun store moving in, and the business poses no threat to passersby or Ashton's new neighbors.
None of that matters to the NIMBYs. The daycare owner has started a petition that's collected more than 2,000 signatures (though Ashton says many of them aren't from the Goleta area) "urging local authorities to deny the establishment of a gun and ammo store next to our preschool."
Studies have consistently shown that the presence of firearms and ammunition, even when securely stored, can increase risks, particularly in sensitive environments like schools. According to research by the American Academy of Pediatrics, firearm violence was the second leading cause of death among children in 2020. The psychological impact of just being near such stores could distress the children and undermine the sense of security parents expect from us.
Furthermore, having a gun and ammo store next to a preschool could affect our community's perception of the safety and integrity of our educational institution. Families may decide against enrolling their children in our preschool, fearing for their safety, which could potentially impact our operations and threaten the future of our cherished educational environment.
There are appropriate locations for gun and ammo stores—next to a preschool should not be one of them. We urge local zoning authorities and community leaders to reevaluate the approval of this establishment's placement and consider safer, alternative locations that do not infringe upon the spaces designated for child development and education.
That petition, by the way, doesn't acknowledge any of the gun laws California lawmakers have adopted to make folks like this daycare owner feel safe. Ashton's customers are going to be vetted by both the state of California and the federal government, will have to undergo a 10-day waiting period before picking up any firearm they purchase, and will be prohibited from purchasing many popular firearms and ammunition magazines... at least until the Supreme Court says otherwise.
I'll be talking with Dan Ashton on Thursday's Bearing Arms Cam & Co, and I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say about the attempt to gin up controversy over his store and his experience as an FFL in one of the places most hostile towards our right to keep and bear arms.
