The Range L.A.: Hollywood’s Elite Gun Club

On paper, it sounds like the worst idea ever: Round up a bunch of cutthroat Hollywood agents, put them in a windowless, soundproof room and give them guns and ammo.

As it happens, though, The Range L.A., a new members-only shooting club in West Los Angeles, just off Sepulveda, is turning out brilliantly. The tony 11,500-square-foot facility — filled with luxe amenities like cushy VIP lounges and gourmet snacks, as well as 16 state-of-the-art target lanes, a VR “shooting experience” bay and an assortment of rentable historic firearms, including one that looks a lot like the .44 Magnum with which Clint Eastwood blew away bad guys in Dirty Harry — has been open less than a year. But already it’s attracting the sort of upscale crowd that usually flocks to the Bird Streets or San Vicente Bungalows, with CAA and UTA agents and top execs from the studios, along with a smattering of movie stars (Samuel L. Jackson shoots there), clamoring to spend as much as $20,000 a year to point a pistol at a paper silhouette and snarl to themselves, “Do you feel lucky, punk?”

“It seems like agents and entertainment lawyers are most drawn to it,” says Peter Diamond, 58, the former film crew professional who started The Range in February. “They say it’s a good way to blow off steam, like going to a batting cage and hitting 500 baseballs.”

“We’re a country club where people get to shoot guns,” is how his brother, Eric, 62, an L.A.-based attorney and a partner in the business, describes the place while pointing out construction upgrades (Kevlar-covered walls, a gun-smoke-removing air filtration system) during a detailed tour of the space, a building on Missouri Avenue so nondescript it used to be an L.A. Probation Department office.

Of course, The Range isn’t L.A.’s first gun-nut playground. Back before it closed in the 1990s, there was the old Beverly Hills Gun Club. But that establishment was neither in Beverly Hills nor much of a club, just a grim, no-frills shooting gallery in a west L.A. warehouse district that had all the gritty charm of a Greyhound bus terminal.

There are a few other, still-operating options farther afield — like the LAX Firing Range near the airport or the Firing-Line range in Burbank — but the ambience at those places is about as high-end as a bowling alley. And therein lies the genius of the Diamond brothers’ concept; they’ve given the lowly target range a Hollywood glow-up, turning it into an A-list destination with all the creature comforts of a Four Seasons … if the Four Seasons handed out Glocks to its guests.

“You go to other gun ranges, and you’re shooting in lanes next to gangbangers,” says one top talent agent who joined the club shortly after it opened. “In this place, you know that everybody’s been vetted. You know who these people are. They’re people you work with, they’re in the business. You know nobody’s going to turn around and shoot you by accident.”

No, not by accident.

This story appeared in the Dec. 4 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.