Highland Park Sportsmen’s Club—20 Years of Meeting in Eagle Rock City Hall

“Bring your food, drinks, chairs, tables, and favorite guns,” reads the flyer. “Join us for a fun day of shooting and don’t forget your family!”

Forget The Lone Ranger. If you’re looking for some real action on the July 4 weekend, join the Highland Park Sportsmen’s Club next week for a “Family Fun Shoot & Potluck BBQ “ at the Burro Canyon Shooting Park in Azusa.

Last week, I chanced upon the Highland Park Sportsmen’s Club at Eagle Rock City Hall. There, in the building’s rear basement, the club’s members meet at 8 p.m. on the first and third Wednesdays of every month to discuss everything from safety tips for shooting to the fate of California Assembly Bill 711, which seeks to ban lead ammunition. 

About 20 club members had gathered for the meeting, presided over by a heavy-set man named Sergio Chau. Dressed in a black T-shirt and black hat, Chau, the club’s vice president, had some business to clear up before the meeting began.

“We have an issue,” he announced, banging the table with a field knife to get everybody’s attention and establish order. “There’s a journalist here who wants to do a story about the club, but we’re not sure if we want that.”

The matter was soon settled, however—by a vote. Turned out that substantially more members favored being written about in the media than those opposed to the idea. (The publicity, said one member, might help increase the club’s membership.)

You wouldn’t expect a de facto gun club to be so agreeable, not to mention democratic.

“This club is so much more positive,” said Chau, addressing me in the audience. “Too many people focus on the negative—we just want to focus on the positive.”

Founded in 1942 by a group of local employees from Lockheed Aircraft, the Highland Park Sportsmen’s Club has come a long way.

“Were a gun club that contributes to a lot of charities, the Boy Scouts being the biggest one,” said Chau, adding: We’re a very social club—it’s very hard to find good people to go out with.”

Indeed, club membership has declined from an all-time high of 100 members to about 50 currently, according to club treasurer and longtime Highland Park resident Mauro Garcia, himself one of the club’s longest-running members.

In an effort to get more members to go to its bimonthly meetings, the Highland Park Sportsmen’s Club conducts a raffle at every meeting in which two $10 gift cards are awarded to winning members in attendance.

Much of the talk at last week’s meeting focused on upcoming events, including a shotgun safety class, a big-bore handguns and rifle shoot, and AB 711.

“If you guys think this is only a hunting issue, you’re mistaken—it covers fishing, too,” Chou told the gathering. He added: “You lose one right, you’re giving them all up.”