Turner’s Outdoorsman on Mohawk Street in Bakersfield sits on a busy corner across from an oil field — an unremarkable stretch of road that has quietly become one of the state’s most notable sources of guns later recovered at crime scenes.
Over the past three years, that single store sold more than 16,000 firearms. During the same period, law enforcement traced 83 guns recovered in criminal investigations back to that location, according to newly released figures from the California Department of Justice. Among stores currently holding an active dealer license, that was the highest total in any of California’s 10 largest cities.
The numbers build on reporting The Trace published in May, which found that the Turner’s Outdoorsman chain — with more than 30 locations statewide — accounted for a disproportionate share of the state’s crime guns. Under state law, a “crime gun” is a firearm used in a crime, suspected of being used in one, or possessed illegally.
The newest state data goes further, breaking down how many crime guns were traced to specific dealers in California’s biggest cities.
The Bakersfield Turner’s location has operated since late 2020. Before that, the same storefront housed Second Amendment Sports, a business no longer licensed to sell firearms. Guns sold there were traced to another 100 crimes in Bakersfield. Combined, the two businesses account for 183 firearms tied to crimes in the city over the three-year period — more than the top five gun dealers combined in any other major California city, including Los Angeles, San Diego or Oakland.
Local violence-prevention workers say the pattern hasn’t gone unnoticed. Juan Avila, with the Bakersfield-based group Garden Pathways, said the topic came up recently during a meeting between his organization and the Bakersfield Police Department. “Many of those were being traced to Turner’s,” he said, adding that tracking the origins of crime guns is a relatively new tool for his group. “That’s really what grabbed my attention — to see how many guns actually can be traced back to a local shop.”
Bakersfield police spokesperson Sally Selby said the department has no evidence of illegal sales occurring at the store.
Beyond Bakersfield, Turner’s locations rank among the top sources of crime guns in Los Angeles, Fresno, Anaheim and Long Beach. In the Sacramento area, one store just outside city limits was linked to 38 firearms recovered by police within Sacramento itself.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty said the volume of guns tied to that store — along with another dealer, River City Gun Exchange, which topped Sacramento’s list — warrants a closer look from law enforcement. “To see if there’s any shortcomings in background checks and procedures to make sure that guns aren’t getting in the wrong hands,” he said.
Experts caution that several factors can influence how often a dealer’s guns turn up at crime scenes, including a store’s location, prices, inventory and customer base, as well as nearby competition.
Statewide, the pattern is even more pronounced. According to a report released in July by the California Department of Justice, Turner’s Outdoorsman remains the single largest source of crime guns in California. Between 2023 and 2025, authorities traced more than 8,500 recovered firearms back to the chain.
Turner’s is also California’s largest gun retailer, responsible for roughly 21.8 percent of all firearm sales recorded during that three-year span — but it accounted for an even larger share, 25.9 percent, of guns later connected to crimes.
That imbalance has drawn concern from gun-safety advocates. “Turner’s is doing something on a corporate level — or they’re not doing something on the corporate level — to prevent this,” said Christian Heyne of Brady United, noting that other major retailers such as Bass Pro Shops and Sportsman’s Warehouse do not appear at the top of the state’s list and show smaller shares of their inventory ending up as crime guns. Eight of the top spots statewide belonged to Southern California Turner’s locations.
“People are being killed by the guns Turner’s sells, and it demands investigation and action,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn said. Hahn previously called for a formal investigation into the retailer following The Trace’s initial reporting, a request Brady United later echoed.
The chain drew national attention earlier this year after Cole Tomas Allen — accused of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April — was found to have purchased his shotgun at a Turner’s store in Torrance.
Turner’s did not respond to requests for comment for this story. In June, a company executive told the conservative outlet The Daily Caller that Turner’s maintains a “proven commitment to regulatory compliance” and that trace data “does not indicate wrongdoing by the retailer.” A 2015 ATF inspection report had previously described one store’s recordkeeping as “meticulous.”
Still, the state’s new report notes several violations uncovered during 2025 inspections of Turner’s locations. Most were minor paperwork issues, but inspectors flagged a possible straw-purchase violation at the chain’s San Bernardino store — the single dealer statewide with the most crime guns traced to it, 781 between 2023 and 2025.
The data also shows that firearms sold by Turner’s are recovered at crime scenes at a higher rate than guns sold by other California dealers. Guns traced to the chain were also 36 percent more likely to be recovered within a year of purchase than those sold elsewhere — a “time-to-crime” window that federal regulators consider a red flag for potential trafficking.
Firearms end up at crime scenes through a variety of paths: some are stolen, some purchased illegally through straw buyers, some funneled into underground markets, and some bought legally by someone who later commits a crime.
California remains the only state that publishes this kind of dealer-specific data. Congress has barred the ATF from releasing similar retailer-level information nationwide since 2003.
Original source: CalMatters
