Breaking: Academy Sports Pulls “Assault Rifles” and Airsoft Lookalikes

Our sister site TFB is reporting that a major sporting goods dealer in the southern USA (Academy Sports + Outdoors) has decided to pull modern sporting rifles from its shelves. As near as anyone can tell, it’s a misguided knee-jerk reaction to the recent mass murder in Orlando. Apparently, they’ll still sell the guns, but will not display them.

In case you missed the memo, the term “modern sporting rifle” is the gun-rights-friendly way to talk about guns that are often called “assault rifles” by the less-informed.

According to Reddit user Potato_Muncher the move to pull rifles from the display rack was at the request of the corporate offices in Texas. According to u/Potato_Muncher the rifles will still be available for sale but not on display leading many buyers to believe that there are no rifles available.

There’s no word on whether Academy will simply sell its existing stock and no more, or whether this “keep them in the back room and sell them on request” approach will be the way they choose to do business from now on.

It gets worse:

TFB also received information from a Academy employee that requested to remain anonymous that there are even more changes. Our informant stated that Academy Sports corporate hosted a conference call requesting all modern sporting rifle lighters and other gifts are being pulled from the shelves along with all the airsoft and bb guns resembling an ‘assault rifle.’

The most shocking development is that the conference call outlined a new policy requiring any sale of more than 10 boxes in a caliber that Academy deems an ‘assault rifle caliber’ will require the buyer to furnish personal information that Academy is planning on keeping in a database; other employees have stated that they were just directed to ‘report the transaction’ with no clear outline on how to do so.

Here we have a major retailer–several of my friends have enjoyed shopping at Academy Sports for hunting gear, guns, and ammo–voluntarily invading customers’ privacy and playing hide-and-seek with guns that some people think “look mean.” Pretty pathetic, if you ask me.

So far, Academy has not posted a public press release on that section of their site, nor have they responded to TFB’s inquiry.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.