Hahn Calls for Investigation into Torrance Gun Store Tied to White House Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting

Cole Tomas Allen screenshot.

LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn May 6 is calling on Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman to launch an investigation into the Turner’s Outdoorsman gun store in Torrance where the alleged White House Correspondents’ Dinner gunman purchased his shotgun. She is also urging the City of Torrance to implement regulations on gun stores similar to new county ordinances.

The alleged gunman, Cole Tomas Allen, purchased the shotgun used in the attack from a Turner’s Outdoorsman location in Torrance on Hawthorne Boulevard. The April 25 shooting in the Washington Hilton left a Secret Service agent injured and prompted a major federal response.

In her letter to the district attorney, Hahn points to troubling data from the California Department of Justice linking the eight Turner’s Outdoorsman stores in Los Angeles County to a disproportionate number of firearms recovered at crime scenes. Between 2022 and 2024, nearly 8,000 crime guns in California were traced back to Turner’s locations—more than any other dealer in the state. The Torrance store alone accounted for 624 of those weapons, ranking second among all individual gun retailers statewide. Other Turner’s locations in Norwalk, Signal Hill, and Pasadena also rank among the top five.

“Turner’s Outdoorsman’s practices demand investigation,” Hahn wrote. “Every day, guns sold at Turner’s locations in LA County turn up at crime scenes. These guns are used to kill, to injure, to rob, and to intimidate. They have inflicted immeasurable harm on Los Angeles County residents, and we should wield every tool we have to protect people.”

Hahn also sent a letter to Torrance Mayor George Chen and the Torrance city council encouraging the city to put in place stricter regulations on gun stores within their city limits. She recommended the city mirror recent ordinances she championed at the county level which apply to unincorporated areas.

These ordinances ban the sale of .50 caliber guns and ammunition, implement a buffer zone between gun dealers and sensitive areas, ban minors from gun stores, and require gun stores to keep fingerprint logs, maintain weekly inventory reports, and have security cameras.

Read letters here:

Hahn letter to District Attorney

Hahn letter to Mayor George Chen