A prominent anti-gunner group in California is targeting a gun retailer by trying to persuade the government to investigate it over crimes in which it was not involved.
The Brady United Against Gun Violence organization sent a letter to Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman earlier this month urging it to investigate Turner’s Outdoorsman gun stores.
The letter echoes some of the concerns of Janice Hahn, who sits on the Board of Supervisors, who demanded the same. It alleges that the retailer contributes to gun violence through illegal practices when selling their firearms.
💯🚨Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn is calling on District Attorney Nathan Hoffman to investigate Turner Outdoorsman, a gun dealership in Torrance, California.
This is the dealership where the attempted Trump assassin, Cole Allen bought his gun.
After further… pic.twitter.com/lwtHZ8Gpdn— 🇺🇸 𝓐𝓟𝓡𝓘𝓛 𝓢𝓟𝓐𝓡𝓚𝓢 🇺🇸 (@AprilSpark1890) May 13, 2026
Suzanne Verge, president of Brady’s Los Angeles chapter compared the gun industry’s role in gun violence to pharmacies filling faulty opioid prescriptions. “Being tough on crime requires addressing all of the root causes of crime, including negligent or illegal actions by the gun industry itself,” the letter states. “Trying to stop the gun violence epidemic without addressing reckless and law-violating dealers that flood our communities with crime guns is like trying to stop the opioid epidemic without addressing the pharmacies that filled illegal or suspicious prescriptions despite red flags.”
The organization notes that Turner operates 34 stores across California, including over a dozen in the greater Los Angeles area. As an example, the letter refers to the Torrance store’s connection to the shotgun used in the April 2026 assassination attempt at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. They also claim the retail chain has been linked to thousands of firearms recovered in disproportionately black and brown communities.
The letter cited a 2025 California Department of Justice report showing that over one in five guns recovered from crimes statewide in 2024 were traced to Turner’s stores. Another analysis conducted by The Trace showed almost 8,000 guns connected to the store between 2022 and 2024.
As damning as they intended for that letter to sound, there is one important thing missing from it: Actual evidence showing that Turner’s is deliberately selling to people who are known criminals
There have been no reports or any other indication that the chain is selling firearms illegally. Even in the example of the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, the alleged assailant legally purchased the Mossberg shotgun he used in the attack. This means he went through the required federal background checks and the state’s ridiculous 10-day waiting period and there were no red flags.
Even further, a 2015 ATF inspection found that the store’s recordkeeping was meticulous. There was only a minor reporting issue at one of the store’s locations. The National Shooting Sports Foundation pointed out that the high trace numbers likely reflect the fact that the chain sells about one-fifth of all the guns in the Golden State, which means the numbers make sense without pretending the company is illegally selling guns.
But since when have anti-gunners cared about facts? Their mission is to make sure that only government officials and criminals are allowed to own guns. They don’t care if they have to lie about a gun seller to move further toward their goal.
Related X posts on the topic include discussion of Hahn’s call for investigation into the Torrance store and explanations tying the numbers to high sales volume in urban areas.
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