The Trace Takes Shot at California Gun Store Chain, Has to Admit It Did Nothing Wrong

Not living in California, I’m not familiar with Turner’s Outdoorsman as a store. It’s just not something I’m going to come across on the opposite side of the nation, apparently, which is fine. I respect any chain store that’s able to sell guns widely in such an anti-gun state.

But it seems the latest would-be Trump assassin got one of his guns at one of the chain’s locations, and that sparked The Trace to spring into action.

And by “spring into action,” I mean engage in some alarmism about the chain.

Eight months before Cole Tomas Allen sprinted past a security checkpoint with his shotgun in an alleged attempt to kill President Donald J. Trump, he walked into Turner’s Outdoorsman in Torrance, California, and purchased the weapon, a Mossberg pump-action 12-gauge.

If convicted, Allen would join a long list of criminals armed with guns from the Turner’s Outdoorsman chain. Between 2022 and 2024, California law enforcement traced nearly 8,000 crime guns — those used in a crime, suspected to have been used in a crime, or illegally possessed — back to Turner’s locations.

With over 30 outlets across California, Turner’s Outdoorsman is the biggest gun seller in the nation’s most populous state. A first-of-its-kind analysis of California Department of Justice data by The Trace shows that Turner’s is connected to more crime guns than any other California dealer or chain. And that’s not only because Turner’s sells so many guns. Among the findings:

• Turner’s stores account for a fifth of guns sold in California, but make up a quarter of all crime guns.
• The chain accounted for 7,922 crime guns from 2022 to 2024. Guns it sold showed up at crime scenes at a rate 35 percent higher than other dealers in the state.
• Guns sold at Turner’s locations wound up at crime scenes quickly — less than a year after purchase — 40 percent more often than guns from other dealers. (Regulators consider a “time-to-crime” of less than one year an indicator of trafficking.)
• The Torrance store where Allen bought his shotgun sold 642 firearms later recovered as crime guns, the second-highest number of any store in the state. 
• Eight of the 10 stores with the most crime gun traces were Turner’s locations in Southern California.

That looks scary, doesn’t it?

Well, only if you first ignore the fact that they’re trying to play games with fractions. This is the country where people failed to recognize that a third of a pound is greater than a quarter of a pound, when applied to burgers. Do you really think most of them are going to recognize that what they said was that Turner’s sells 20 percent of the guns, but the guns they sell make up 25 percent of “crime guns” with how they phrase it?

Probably not.

After all, that’s damn near the same amount. Plus, let’s look at the whole “time-to-crime” claim. They’re implying here that Turner’s is somehow failing to do their homework and that they’re responsible for those guns ending up in criminal hands.

All across this piece, there’s a definite tone suggesting that Turner’s is somehow responsible. Yet, much deeper in the piece, they’re forced to admit something that they’d rather not.

They have to admit that it’s not Turner’s fault.

Four current and former Turner’s employees said the company’s sales and inventory practices are relatively tight. ATF inspection paperwork from 2015, while citing one store’s failure to file required reports, noted that “overall, [Turner’s] recordkeeping is meticulous.” The chain doesn’t allow sales in which a background check comes back “undetermined” to proceed. A former employee called the chain’s more stringent sales practices a notable distinction from dealers that take a less cautious approach. The current and former employees interviewed for this story asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak on behalf of the company.

So they talked to employees who said that the company does everything right, even going a step further than required by law by not releasing gun sales that come back “undetermined” for whatever reason. Even the ATF admits that the chain keeps “meticulous” records, which means they’re doing things right.

This, of course, comes after also trying to link the chain to the San Bernardino terrorist attack, among other sins.

It’s also followed by implications that gun stores should start engaging in racial profiling, as Second Amendment attorney Kostas Moros noted on X.

Ok ya, the Trace is basically implying we should stop selling guns in minority neighborhoods.

Cool. pic.twitter.com/prqntzOJOT

— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) May 5, 2026

Just…just beautiful, really, that they’ll put their own racism on display like that.

Something else Moros notes in his thread is that not a single expert from any pro-gun perspective appears to have been contacted, but they were all over talking to a former ATF honcho turned Brady employee, and his call for the company to be investigated for a slight statistical deviation from perfect parity.

There’s no evidence they did anything wrong, and they even admit that all the evidence shows the opposite, but Turner’s had to be demonized. Why? Because they sell guns.

What other reason would they need?

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