The Business of Guns

Bass Pro Shops is one of the United States’ largest privately held companies. Like Dick’s, it sells outdoor equipment in 200 stores throughout the country. In 2017, the company acquired Cabela’s, a major competitor, giving it a much larger range in new markets. Bass Pro Shops, unlike Dick’s, sells handguns as well as semiautomatic rifles. Unlike both Walmart and Dick’s, Bass did not restrict sales of semiautomatic rifles in the aftermath of major mass shootings, nor did the company raise the minimum age of purchase from 18 to 21 (except in states where this is already the law for specific weapons). This makes them the last big-box store to sell semiautomatics and the only one to sell high-capacity magazines in states where these magazines are legal. Small Gun Stores: Where the Criminals Go Most gun-crime experts agree that the majority of guns used to break the law, from simple robberies to murder, come primarily from smaller gun stores. While the big-box stores earn the most glaring public condemnation for selling handguns, assault rifles, and high-capacity magazines, it is the much smaller facilities that supply guns directly or indirectly to criminals. Reports by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) suggest that just 1 percent of gun stores nationwide account for over half of all the firearms used in crime. Some 120 individual gun stores provided over 50,000 guns traced to crimes in the late 1990s, each of which accounted for at least 200 individual traces. What’s more, only 24 of these stores have shut down since the late 1990s, and some of them that shut down reopened, some even with the same ownership. Only a quarter of these specific stores have been audited by the ATF, while 58 of them have had zero dealer prosecutions after being caught making illegal sales.

Chapter 2: Retailers

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