Authorities say a California man charged with attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump legally purchased firearms at two gun stores in Los Angeles County's South Bay, a region with a relatively high concentration of licensed dealers.
Cole Tomas Allen, accused of rushing a banquet room at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday night, bought a 12-gauge shotgun at a Turner's Outdoorsman store in his hometown of Torrance and a semiautomatic pistol at CAP Tactical Firearms in nearby Lawndale, reported the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.
The case has drawn attention to firearm access in Los Angeles County, which is often viewed as restrictive due to state and local regulations. However, data show that gun dealers remain prevalent in certain areas, particularly in the South Bay.
Torrance had 18 firearms dealers as of November 2023, or roughly one for every 8,150 residents in the city of about 147,000 people.
Across Los Angeles County, there were about 350 licensed dealers in 2023, including 38 in the city of Los Angeles, which has nearly 4 million residents.
Local regulations vary widely by municipality. Burbank enacted a temporary moratorium on new gun dealers in 2022 and later approved buffer zones restricting their proximity to schools and churches.
Torrance has also taken steps to limit where gun-related businesses can operate. In 2023, the City Council approved regulations barring gun dealers and certain other businesses from locating in the city's downtown area, though they remain permitted in other commercial zones.
Federal and state data indicate that firearms sold in Torrance have been linked to crimes at a relatively high rate.
Between 2017 and 2021, dealers in the city sold the third-highest number of so-called "crime guns" later recovered in Los Angeles of any municipality in the United States, according to a 2023 report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
The report defined crime guns as those used in or suspected to have been used in crimes, as well as stolen or illegally possessed firearms.
More than 700 crime guns recovered in Los Angeles during that period were originally purchased from Torrance dealers, the report found.
Separately, data from the California Department of Justice showed that between 2010 and 2022, the Turner's Outdoorsman location in Torrance sold 1,652 firearms later classified as crime guns, while CAP Tactical Firearms sold 150.
A spokesperson for Turner's Outdoorsman told The Times that the company does not comment publicly on law enforcement matters. CAP Tactical Firearms did not respond to requests for comment.
In Torrance, Allen's arrest has shocked neighbors and acquaintances, who described him as quiet and academically accomplished.
He holds a mechanical engineering degree from the California Institute of Technology and worked as a tutor. He lived with his parents, both educators, in a middle-class neighborhood.
"Torrance is a community built on respect, diversity, hard work, and public safety," Mayor George Chen said in a statement posted on X. "Our community joins the nation in condemning the violent incident that occurred in Washington, D.C."
Authorities say Allen wrote a manifesto naming administration officials as targets. The document also referenced Christianity, including a statement criticizing what it described as inaction in the face of oppression.
In an interview over the weekend, Trump described Allen as "sick" and said he "hates Christians."
At Caltech, Allen was previously involved in a campus Christian fellowship group, according to an archived 2016 posting that listed him as a coordinator.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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