Bloomberg Agitprop Outlet Tries to Blame Gun Store For Selling To Would Be Trump Assassin

Antigun billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s gun control propaganda arm, The Trace, is at it again. They’re re-running the false flag “name-and-shame” playbook. That’s the attempt to have media pin the criminal misuse of a firearm on a firearm retailer instead of the criminals who are actually breaking the law.

The latest accusation is that Turner’s Outdoorsman in Torrance, California, is somehow to blame for the alleged attempted assassin who targeted President Donald Trump and his Cabinet members at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, D.C. Bloomberg’s disinformation-disguised-as-journalism outlet, The Trace, told NewsBreak, that the accusation “shows that Turner’s is connected to more crime guns than any other California dealer or chain.”

NewsBreak, citing The Trace, admits that Turner’s is one of the largest California firearm retailers. NewsBreak also laid the data on thick to boost their narrative that the firearm retailer was somehow responsible for criminals misusing firearms. Then, NewsBreak offered this disclaimer.

“It’s not clear why Turner’s is overrepresented in the data, but there are several potential reasons some dealers are tied to high numbers of crime guns,” NewsBreak reported. “Factors such as store location, lax sales practices, the types of guns sold, and low prices can contribute to higher numbers of traces, according to academics and former law enforcement.”

Evidence-Free Accusations

There’s no proof that the firearm retailer did anything illegal. The firearms sold were transferred after the purchaser filled out the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Form 4473. That’s the form that requires the transferee, or purchaser, to verify that they are not a prohibited person, a fugitive from the law, dishonorably discharged from the U.S. military and that individual taking possession of the firearm is the true, intended recipient of the firearm. Individuals lying on that form risk a felony conviction, which carries a 15-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.

That sale also must be approved by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. When firearm retailers ensure these steps are completed, and any accompanying state requirements, transferring a firearm is legal. In California, that means a firearm retailer also runs a background check through the California Department of Justice, the purchaser must wait 10 days to take possession of the firearm purchased at retail, must obtain a permit to purchase a firearm and must register that firearm with law enforcement.

The Trace, run by Bloomberg’s longtime gun control associate from his days as the New York City mayor, John Feinblatt, doesn’t question Cal DOJ on why firearms it approved for transfer end up at crime scenes and law enforcement requests a trace. Neither did Steve Lindley, the former head of the Bureau of Firearms at CADOJ, who now works at the Brady Campaign. He was quoted by NewsBreak saying the firearm retailer has a responsibility to figure out why criminals misuse firearms they sold, even though those firearms might have been later stolen or illegally transferred to the black market. However, Lindley, along with the Brady gun control organization, The Trace and NewsBreak recklessly toss out accusations over why one of the largest firearm retail chains in California is named in those firearm trace requests.

Bloomberg, who once admitted he believed in “gun control for thee, not me,” through his antigun screed wants the American public to believe that when law enforcement requests a trace of firearm, that means the firearm retailer is shady.

Shady Claims

What’s shady are The Trace’s assertions. Don’t take our word for it. Take the word of the ATF, the bureau that regulates the firearm industry and puts illegal gun traffickers in prison.

The ATF provides a disclaimer with this statement: “Firearms are normally traced to the first retail seller, and sources reported for firearms traced do not necessarily represent the sources or methods by which firearms in general are acquired for use in crime.”

Even earlier, the ATF wrote in the 1998 Crime Gun Trace Analysis Reports, “The appearance of [a licensed dealer] or a first unlicensed purchaser of record in association with a crime gun or in association with multiple crime guns in no way suggests that either the federal firearms licensed dealer (FFL) or the first purchaser has committed criminal acts. Rather, such information may provide a starting point for further and more detailed investigation.”

In April 2024, the ATF released Volume Three of the National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment. The report focused specifically on 9,700 ATF firearm trafficking investigations over a five-year period between 2017 and 2021.

The ATF’s own report found just 136 cases of illegal firearm trafficking tied to a federal firearms licensee over the five-year period — just 1.6 percent of all 9,700 cases. With 134,516 FFLs at the end of 2021, that equates to just 0.1 percent of all FFLs being implicated in allegedly illegal firearm trafficking.

Conversely, illegal straw purchases and private sales accounted for 80 percent of all cases. Stolen firearms represented another 25 percent of cases of illegally trafficked firearms.

Even the ATF acknowledged that the firearm industry is doing its part in self-policing.

“The data analyzed in this report indicates that a shift in the types of trafficking channels used over the course of the last two decades has occurred,” the report states. “Corrupt FFL investigations represented almost 9% of trafficking investigations in the 2000 report, but now represent less than two percent of trafficking investigations.”

Bury the Truth

Buried deep in the NewsBreak article is the admission that large retailers, especially chain stores, are “unlikely to engage in risky sales, much less trafficking.”

“It doesn’t make sense from a business perspective,” said Joseph Bisbee to NewsBreak, a former ATF agent who has trained over 1,000 officers on firearms trafficking investigations.

NewsBreak even noted, deep down in the article, that Turner’s displays NSSF’s cooperative initiative with the ATF, “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy” to prevent illegal straw purchases.

“At least one Turner’s location, in Pasadena, displays posters from the gun industry’s anti-straw purchase program ‘Don’t Lie For The Other Guy.’ The ATF calls dealers “the first line of defense” against straw purchasing,” NewsBreak reported.

What’s also shady is The Trace’s claim that they’re honest journalists. This “name-and-shame” effort isn’t new. In fact, the Biden administration ran the same playbook when it weaponized the ATF against the firearm industry. The Biden administration, ignored federal law, called the Tiahrt Rider, to release sensitive trace data contained within the ATF’s National Tracing Center’s Firearm Tracing System. This is the database of firearms that have been recovered and traced by law enforcement in connection with a bona fide criminal investigation. The Tiahrt rider allows law enforcement to have access to and share trace information with others in law enforcement. It does, however, prevent public disclosure of this sensitive data outside of law enforcement.

Despite the law’s clear and unambiguous language that information from the FTS is not subject to a Freedom of Information Act request or any civil process, e.g., a subpoena. The Biden administration released data from the FTS in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from USA Today and the gun control group Brady United.

Specifically, ATF, under the Biden administration, released — for the first time ever — the names of federally licensed retailers who are part of ATF’s Demand Letter 2 program. That “name-and-shame” list that was wrongfully released included the Washington, D.C., Metro Police Department. That’s not because anyone at the D.C. Metro Police Department did anything wrong. It’s because criminals later misused firearms that were legally transferred.

The shame here belongs to Bloomberg’s antigun mouthpiece, The Trace. It’s clear, though, they have no shame when it comes to ignoring the truth.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.