On a recent afternoon in Los Angeles, the veteran Hollywood agent Rob Kenneally was unwinding with his usual post-lunch ritual: firing a few rounds from his 9-millimeter pistol with a couple of friends.
“It’s a meditative thing for me,” said Kenneally, who at an earlier point in his movie industry career also worked part-time as a Los Angeles County reserve sheriff’s deputy. “It’s just always been a way to sort of blow the cobwebs out after a day of work.”
He was sitting in a dark leather armchair at the Range L.A., a members-only gun club on the border of the well-heeled Brentwood neighborhood that has become a gathering place for gun enthusiasts, industry professionals, actors and artists. Kenneally, 67, says he often runs into people he works with, and several of his clients take lessons from one of the club’s shooting instructors.
“It seems to attract, for some reason, people who are in the entertainment business,” he said.
That’s no doubt partly because of its location. Then there’s the atmosphere at the Range, whose interior resembles that of Equinox, the high-end gym chain that also happens to be its neighbor. Not far from where Kenneally sat were a touch-screen coffee machine, a Bevi flavored water dispenser, a shuffleboard table, vintage cowboy-themed posters and artwork mounted on exposed brick walls.
Similar high-end gun clubs (some of them members-only) have started popping up across the country, including Centennial Gun Club in the Denver metropolitan area, Frisco Gun Club outside Dallas, XCAL outside Washington, D.C., and the Blackwood Club, which is under construction in Bergen County, N.J. And the Range has two more locations in the works, in the South Bay and the San Fernando Valley.
These sleek, modern takes on the shooting range suggest that while gun control remains a polarizing political issue in the United States, gun culture has appeal for people across the political spectrum.
The upscale grocery store Erewhon has catered events at the Range L.A.; Philip Goglia, the Kardashians’ celebrity nutritionist, is a member who drops by often; and it’s not uncommon to see a G-Wagon parked out front. Hollywood agents leave the firing line to take calls or business lunches in the club’s lounges.
“We have 20-something-year-olds, and we have 80-year-olds here; we have men and women,” said Peter Diamond, who opened the Range two years ago with Eric Diamond, his older brother. “We have people from all different political persuasions, and we have people from all different industries.”
He explained that they maintained a strict policy for the TVs in the facility: No news. No political shows.
Members of the Range — about 600, according to the owners — pay $3,700 to $5,400 annually. Guests have access to a pro shop of sorts, with an in-house armorer, private lessons and the use of some 40 firearms, many of which hang on the wall behind the check-in counter.
The brothers estimate that about 85 percent of their members are gun owners already, but the rentals allow them to try new firearms, come by with little notice or bring a guest. (California law prohibits open-carry in counties with at least 200,000 residents, but residents of less populated counties can apply for an open-carry license.)
On this afternoon, a young member and two friends were checking out rentals. They had guns at home, but had decided to swing by for a little range time.
The walls, filled with soundproofing and ballistic Kevlar, keep the noise to a minimum, but there’s still a steady drumbeat of gunshots heard in the lobby, which features lounge chairs, sofas and a low table scattered with coffee-table books like “Small Arms Visual Encyclopedia.”
The brothers had a particular vision in mind, hoping to distinguish their establishment from the handful of ranges in the Los Angeles area: “I tell people we’re a club that just happens to be a shooting range,” said Peter Diamond, an avuncular 60-year-old sitting behind a large wooden desk decorated with miniature black powder cannons.
As general manager, though, he’s not often found there: He prefers to walk the floor like a restaurant owner, checking in on guests and shaking hands with regulars. He usually carries a small Yugoslavian Zastava pistol from the 1970s in his pocket. (He has a concealed carry permit, as do many of his members. California allows residents to carry firearms with one of these permits.)
He and Eric Diamond, 65, who still maintains his day job as the chief operating officer of a business management firm, decided to open the Range after decades of shooting elsewhere around Los Angeles.
Both grew up shooting with their father and at rifle programs at summer camps in Pennsylvania and upstate New York, but the hobby was always a bit more of a passion for Peter, who also collected antique firearms. After a few career changes — including 15 years in the film industry as an assistant director and a production manager — Peter said he “finally grew up and figured out what I wanted to do with my life.”
There is some precedent for the upscale gun club, said David Yamane, the author of “Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside America’s Gun Culture,” drawing a comparison to exclusive 19th-century establishments like the Boone and Crockett Club, which Theodore Roosevelt helped found. Often centered around hunting, “it wasn’t just a matter of could you afford to join, but were you the right kind of person,” Yamane said.
The modern “guntry clubs,” as he calls them, are a sign that as American gun culture has evolved, it has become increasingly like other modern consumer cultures, said Yamane, who is a sociology professor at Wake Forest University. “I think a lot of these guntry clubs do remind me of what late-stage consumer capitalism looks like.”
“A $6,000 pistol is not necessarily 10 times better than a $600 pistol,” he added, “so you’re buying it for something other than just functionality.”
The Diamond brothers are conscious that the Range’s members often “belong to a dining club, a golf club, a tennis club, and maybe to a smoking club,” said Eric Diamond, citing Brentwood Country Club and Riviera Country Club nearby. “We cater to a specific demographic economically.”
The staff of eight covers desk check-in, basic weapons maintenance, training and range safety, but when hiring, Peter said he and his brother “didn’t want a bunch of gun guys.”
“We’re a hospitality-based business,” he said. “I want hotel front desk staff. You can teach someone the mechanics of the gun industry. I can’t teach someone to be personable and nice and polite.”
At the Range, Jonathan Gomez, the in-house armorer, was in the middle of installing a member’s upgraded trigger kit for a Sig Sauer P365 handgun. At first, he said, he was surprised by the types of guns members were shooting. It’s “definitely a different type of gun owner,” said Gomez, 27, a bespectacled man with a handful of tattoos going down his left arm. By “different” he clarified that he meant the guns are more expensive here than at a typical range.
Many members shoot Staccato pistols, he said, which in California can cost up to $6,000 depending on the model. Another popular, more boutique firearm brand is the local Taran Tactical Innovations, which has grown in popularity since helping to provide John Wick’s arsenal. A Taran Tactical Innovations Pit Viper pistol can retail for nearly $9,000. The Range has a variety of Staccato and Taran Tactical guns for rent.
“It’s kind of like watches or shoes,” Gomez continued. “People have their collections. They have nicer stuff they can show off here.”
Some may relish their expensive weaponry, but the Range members are drawn there for a number of reasons.
Jodi Ladge, a physician assistant in neurosurgery, said she had originally bought a gun for self-protection about two years ago, worrying about “the way things have been in L.A.,” but is now entering competitive shooting matches.
Ladge, wearing her gun belt, which carries her spare magazines, holster, shooting gloves and first-aid kit, has been a member of the Range for more than a year. She was with two friends she had made at the club, and they were discussing lunch plans.
“I never thought I would be doing this ever,” she said. But it is an ideal way for her to decompress, especially with the Range ambience. “All you can think of when you’re shooting is shooting,” she said.
Like Kenneally, the Hollywood agent, Leonard Konopelski, a graphic designer wearing arty royal-blue glasses, said he found shooting therapeutic. “I’m coming here to try to relax my body,” said Konopelski, 83.
He shoots at the Range about three days a week and views his pistol as a precise instrument, like a Leica camera. Mr. Konopelski, who first became interested in shooting as a boy in Poland and later during his mandatory military training, said he liked that the Range was somewhere he could easily drop into as a member.
By midafternoon, the concrete floor of the 16 shooting lanes was thick with spent shell casings. In a period of calm, the range was declared “cold,” and an employee picked up the brass with a small cylindrical cart reminiscent of those used on tennis courts. In the lounge, a member took a Zoom call, while another grabbed a snack. Soon, the brass was piling up again.
