Academy Sports

[We Jeep Inn]

Went in the Anderson store yesterday to grab a couple of things. The shelves were full of guns, no AR's. Honestly, I didn't know they sold AR's in the 1st place, never have paid attention or gun shopped there. They had piles of 223/5.56 ammo.

[JABIII]

Academy Sports pays $2.5M for illegal gun sales

By: The Associated Press
December 1, 2023

COLUMBIA — A sporting goods chain is paying the families of three people shot to death by a South Carolina serial killer $2.5 million after one of its stores sold guns to a straw buyer who gave them to the killer, a felon who couldn’t legally buy the weapons.

At times, Todd Kohlhepp stood near the buyer, picking out guns at Academy Sports Outdoors to be purchased for him, the families said in a lawsuit that led to the settlement.

Academy Sports asked that the amount of the settlement be kept confidential because it could encourage other lawsuits, but a judge ruled it didn’t make much of a difference because the case had attracted so much publicity already, and that the public had a right to know how it turned out. The estates of the victims will split the settlement.


Kohlhepp pleaded guilty in 2017 to killing seven people — three on his property in Spartanburg County and four others about 12 years earlier at a motorcycle shop. In between the killings, he ran a real estate business. He is serving life without parole.

Before the shootings, Kohlhepp had been barred from having guns because he was a convicted felon. He moved to South Carolina in 2001 shortly after spending 14 years in prison on a kidnapping conviction in Arizona. Authorities there said the then-15-year-old boy forced a 14-year-old neighbor back to his home at gunpoint, tied her up and raped her.

To obtain his guns, Kohlhepp used Dustan Lawson to make a straw purchase.


Lawson signed paperwork saying the 12 guns and five silencers he bought between 2012 and 2016 were for himself and then gave them to Kohlhepp, according to a federal indictment against Lawson. The lawsuit said at least seven of the weapons were bought at Academy Sports.

“Those suppressors were bought legally for about three minutes,” Kohlhepp said, laughing in a videotaped interview with investigators shortly after his November 2016 arrest.

Lawson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison.

He told federal investigators that Kohlhepp mentioned killing four people at a motorcycle shop and kidnapping a woman and her boyfriend so he could keep her as a sex slave but said he didn’t believe it because Kohlhepp was always telling wild stories.

In his interviews with deputies, Kohlhepp called Lawson a “32-year-old lazy kid who never had a daddy.” A deputy asked if Lawson bought Kohlhepp’s guns.

“Yes, sir, and then I modified the hell out of them,” Kohlhepp replied.

Kohlhepp was arrested after a woman’s cellphone pinged its last signal from his property. Deputies found her chained inside a storage container. She told them her boyfriend had been killed and that led to finding the bodies of another man and woman. Kohlhepp said he sexually abused the second woman for six days before killing her on Christmas 2015.

Kohlhepp then confessed to killing the owner of the Superbike motorcycle shop and three employees in November 2003 because he thought they made fun of him, authorities said.

https://sclawyersweekly.com/news/202...gal-gun-sales/

[Gregory]

Scheels is my new store.

[Model12]

Scheels is my new store.

Aren't they in Arizona?

[Remy]

Except PSA actually cares about the 2nd amendment. Their whole business model revolves around putting American made firearms in the hands of Americans.

But muh chinese Stanley mugs!! Muh chinese sweat shop nikes! Muh game winner knock off boots!!

FUCK academy sports. It's was just a matter of time they became the next sports authority. The next dicks....

They don't care about you. They care about their bottom fucking line. Stand in line for 45 min to buy your $45 worth of chinese bullshit. Come back for more next payday.

Don't fool yourself. PSA is private equity backed and only cares about their bottom line just like Academy. The only difference is Academy can survive without selling ARs. PSA would cease to exist if they stopped selling ARs. PSA may support the 2nd amendment, but don't act like its all for the love of the USA. It benefits them to do so.

[Glenn]

Don't fool yourself. PSA is private equity backed and only cares about their bottom line just like Academy. The only difference is Academy can survive without selling ARs. PSA would cease to exist if they stopped selling ARs. PSA may support the 2nd amendment, but don't act like its all for the love of the USA. It benefits them to do so.

Toss me in the category of business owner that cares about my bottom line. I didn't realize owning a business and wanting to actually make money from it made me a social criminal.

#18KRampLife

[Ring King]

They're all over the mid-west! Best deal I've found on Kent was at a Nebraska store. They gave me a case price discount as well as a military discount. I bought 8 cases after just stopping to look around on a cross country trip to fish a bass tournament in Wisconsin!

[Arrowman]

I’ve bought a few guns from Academy and all went smoothly. I actually bought a pistol last week. I’m feeling cute so I might go buy another tonight.

[Gander]

Just bought 8 boxes of blackout targets from Academy. At $15 a box it's hard to beat.

[willyworm]

I can't imagine myself ever having to buy another gun, if I do, it won't be in a store. I haven't left a gun counter with a warm feeling after talking to a sales associate

My last time at a PSA was the Dirty Myrtle one. The older gentleman I engaged was quite the opposite of your normal tacticool gun counter bro. It was refreshing.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

[Buckshot14]

Never bought a gun from one of the big box stores. Doubt I ever will.

What ever happened to supporting your local guys? Everybody on here bitching about republican this and democrat that, but you don’t wanna spend an extra $3 bucks with the local sporting goods owner. Speaking of fishing gear, the local store here in town will order and stock whatever is requested.

Maybe it’s just me. Academy is useful for a last minute Christmas run, but I get a better deal and more conversation at my local joint.

[jevans]

Never bought a gun from one of the big box stores. Doubt I ever will.

What ever happened to supporting your local guys? Everybody on here bitching about republican this and democrat that, but you don’t wanna spend an extra $3 bucks with the local sporting goods owner. Speaking of fishing gear, the local store here in town will order and stock whatever is requested.


Maybe it’s just me. Academy is useful for a last minute Christmas run, but I get a better deal and more conversation at my local joint.

Amen! I can say I’ve never walked in a PSA. I have gone to Academy to get softball shit for my daughter. If there was a legit local store In Florence that stocked stuff she could use I’d support them before I went to Academy

[rp]

I know some of the folks who started PSA. Nice fellas. One was was working for my wife when he left to start the business. Well, the business had already been started and was doing so well he left.

They are there for the $ and they do enjoy the guns. Don't be so rough on them.

They are no longer on the sales floor. Some of those guys can be jerks. You get that at all stores.

One of those pricks is a regular poster here. He is not really a big of a prick as his wife says he is. He will help you out anyway he can. He just isn't on the sales floor either.