California

Fort Worth-Based Gun Shop Invoice Found in San Bernardino Suspects' Townhouse

FBI evidence receipt listed invoice from Cheaper Than Dirt gun shop

FBI agents took invoices from two gun shops, one based in Fort Worth, as well as rounds of .223-caliber and a 9-millimeter ammunition, weapons accessories and an iPhone when they searched the California home of the shooters in the San Bernardino massacre.

Those items and others were listed on an FBI evidence receipt left behind at the home of Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, and posted by the Los Angeles Times.

The landlord of the Redlands, California, town house that they rented allowed reporters into the home on Friday.

The invoices do not say what was purchased from Cheaper Than Dirt, which according to its website is a gun discounter based in Fort Worth, and the second online gun shop, Budsgunshop.com.

Messages left for Cheaper Than Dirt’s chief operating officer, Roberta Wilson, were not immediately returned.

The retailer tweeted that it has never shipped guns to California and that it is regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

A message left with Budsgunshop.com also was not been returned.

Farook and Malik are suspected of killing 14 people and wounding another 21 when they burst into a holiday party for the staff of San Bernardino County’s health department, where Farook worked as an inspector of restaurants and chlorine levels in public swimming pools, authorities said. The couple was carrying .223-caliber assault rifles and 9-millimeter handguns, according to authorities.

Both were later killed in a shootout with police.

Four of the weapons used in the mass shooting were purchased in California, two in San Diego, according to the ATF.

Farook bought a 9mm-Springfield pistol at Turner’s Outdoorsman store in San Diego and a Llama 9 mm pistol at an Annie’s Get Your Gun store. An acquaintance purchased a .223-caliber DPMS rifle at the San Diego Turner's and a 5.56-caliber rifle at another Turner’s in Corona, California.

All the guns were purchased legally, the ATF said.

As for ammunition, an initiative that will appear on the ballot in California next year would require that all ammunition sales occur in a face-to-face transaction, according to Lindsay Nichols, a senior attorney with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San Francisco.

Online orders would be allowed but would first have to be shipped to a licensed ammunition seller who would be required to keep a record of the sale and conduct a background check before transferring the ammunition to the buyer, Nicholas said.  Buyers would no longer be able to order ammunition online to their door.
 

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