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By Mandy Haggerson

Married small business owners Kirk and Christy Peavy love spending the majority of their day together. Whether they are at their business, LuxFirearms, the Jerry Long YMCA or enjoying family time, they always find it most enjoyable together.

Although both Kirk and Christy come from different backgrounds, they have found that they share the same common thread with their values and priorities. As a child, Christy saw first-hand how hard work and perseverance paid off. Her mother had come to the United States at the age of 6 as a refugee from Cuba. Her father came over from Colombia at the age of 16. During Christy’s summers as a teenager, she worked in her mother’s clothing store to earn spending money.

“I had thought that I wanted to become a teacher eventually when I went to college at Nova Southeastern University,” Christy said. “However, I should have learned during that time working in my mom’s store how much I enjoyed sales and interacting with people.”

When Kirk was figuring out his steps for starting a career, he was drawn to business for his undergraduate studies and fire science at the University of Arizona.

“I thought that I wanted to be an arson investigator,” Kirk said.

However, the Gulf War impacted his decision, and when his family members who had served came back, Kirk decided he wanted to do his part, too.

“I joined the United States Army in 1995 after visiting a recruiter’s office,” Kirk said. “I was in the Special Operations unit and went to Ft. Bragg not long after.

His focus was on counterintelligence for the next eight years which required frequent deployments.

“I loved it more than I expected to. My plan was to retire from the Army. However, I ended up getting medically retired.”

Kirk found a way to parlay his skills in other counterintelligence positions, including the Defense Intelligence Agency, DynCorp International, and Academi (formerly known as Blackwater).

Throughout his career, he was assigned to three presidents’ details, ambassadors and many prominent leaders within the government and heads of Fortune 500 companies.

“I ended up coming to North Carolina to implement training to students in order to be successful in high threat environments overseas while conducting protection for diplomats while visiting other dignitaries,” says Kirk.

Christy had a different path to North Carolina. She and her first husband had gotten jobs in sales at R.J. Reynolds.

“It was a good opportunity, and I don’t think I realized at that time it would be a permanent move,” Christy said. “During that time, I had my daughters, Isabella (13) and Sofia (11). When they were just three and five years old my first husband passed away from cancer. That was a really tough time.”

However, perseverance and her faith in God played a huge part in moving forward.

“Sometimes we need to walk through fire to become stronger on the other side,” Christy said. “Up until my children were born, I had worked in various sales positions at Pepsi and Western Union. Once they were born, I had stayed home with them for about six years full time.”

After several years, Christy decided to consider dating again. In 2017, Kirk and Christy connected through a Christian dating site. After dating for two years, they were married and blended their families which also included Kirk’s children, Zachary (20) and Emily (18). With so many common interests, they realized that it would be fun to life partners and business partners.

“We had made a couple of real estate investments that allowed us to consider what that would look like,” Kirk said. “We are both very social people and knew that we wanted to involve our community. We had looked at doing an indoor shooting range. When a buddy of mine decided to sell his store, Idols Gun Rack and Gun Vault, it seemed like a phenomenal opportunity.

“They had one location in Kernersville, and one in East Bend. We knew that we wanted to bring the location from East Bend to Clemmons, which we did about five months ago. We also changed our name to LuxFirearms.”

Christy likes that they’ve made some changes that they believe reflects the customer trends.

“We have tried to tailor it more to females because statistically, they are out-purchasing men,” Christy said. “We aren’t trying to reinvent the market, but we also aren’t ignoring it.

“When you walk in, there is a place to sit down with a chandelier, so it’s more relaxed and upscale. What’s nice is that I have my best friend to bounce ideas off of and we go back and forth.”

The Peavys absorbed all of their employees from the previous owner, too.

“We believed in supporting our community and were lucky that good people who shared our vision and mission wanted to stay on, too,” Christy said.

The veteran- and Latino-owned business has two locations in Clemmons (3438 Kinnamon Village Commons) and Kernersville (806 NC-66, Unit F).

“Our next goal is to open an indoor shooting range in Clemmons,” Kirk said. “However, for now we want to just let folks know that we are here, and we are looking forward to seeing them.”

If not working at LuxFirearms, Kirk still gets requests to help with threat assessments and training opportunities at various local churches.

“I try to help when I can,” Kirk said. “The church that I helped out recently took some time, but I am happy to lend my skills when I can.”

Making the world a safer and better place is especially meaningful to the Peavy family as they look forward to welcoming their first granddaughter in September.