Academy Sports’ gun sale cited
Feds say retailer bears responsibility in church shooting
Academy Sports + Outdoors bears some responsibility for the Sutherland Springs mass shooting because the Katy retailer illegally sold an assault-style rifle with a high-capacity magazine to the killer, federal prosecutors said this week.
The Department of Justice, in a court filing Tuesday responding to a federal lawsuit from victims’ families, blamed Academy as a responsible party in the mass shooting, which claimed the lives of more than two dozen worshippers inside Sutherland Springs’ First Baptist
Church in 2017. The government is seeking to have Academy added to the case.
Attorneys defending the U.S. said Academy should not have sold Devin Patrick Kelley a semi-automatic rifle with a 30-round magazine, which is illegal in his home state of Colorado. Kelley presented a Colorado driver’s license to employees at an Academy store in San Antonio before the purchase, government lawyers said.
“The Federal Gun Control Act required Academy to comply with the laws of both Texas, the seller’s state, and Colorado, the buyer’s apparent state of residence,” Paul David Stern, a Justice Department attorney, said in the court filing. “Academy was not permitted to sell Kelley the Model 8500 Ruger AR-556 under federal law because sale of that rifle would have been illegal in Colorado.”
An Academy spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the company does not comment on pending litigation.
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act has for years shielded firearms manufacturers and retailers from liability when crimes have been committed with their products. However, gun dealers who fail to follow the law when selling firearms to consumers can
be held responsible, said John Donohue, a Stanford University law professor and economist who has studied mass shootings.
“The federal statute doesn’t give you blanket immunity,” Donohue said. “When you’re a gun seller, you have to be very scrupulous about following the letter of the law.”
Several national retailers have stopped selling certain firearms and ammunition in response to mounting public pressure — and liability — in the aftermath of mass shootings.
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, said last month it would stop selling ammunition for assault-style rifles and handguns in response to recent mass shootings in El Paso and West Texas. The Bentonville, Ark.-based discounter several years ago stopped selling assault-style rifles such as the AR-15, raised the age limit for firearm and ammunition sales to 21 years old and required background checks on all firearm sales. The retailer also video records its firearms section and allows only certain trained employees to sell guns.
Following a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., last year, Dick’s Sporting Goods pulled assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines from its stores and required all gun buyers be at least 21 years old. Earlier this year, the
Pennsylvania-based retailer announced it would stop selling firearms and ammunition at 125 of its 700 stores nationwide.
Kroger, the Cincinnatibased grocer, last year stopped selling handguns and ammunition at its Fred Meyer stores in the Pacific Northwest.
Academy so far has resisted public calls to change its firearms policies, and continues to sell pistols, rifles and ammunition. Company representatives said last month it conducts background checks and monitors its firearms section with cameras. For every firearm it sells, the retailer offers a $10 trigger lock at cost as well as a 10 percent discount on its gun safes.
“We want our customers to be safe and responsible firearm owners,” Sam Johnson, Academy’s executive vice president of retail operations, said last month.
Jamal Alsaffar, the lead attorney with Austin-based National Trial Law, represents six families of Sutherland Springs victims in their state case against Academy and a separate, federal case against the U.S. government for failing to report the shooter to the FBI criminal background check system. The Air Force failed multiple times to provide the FBI with the shooter’s criminal record, which included a 2014 court-martial assault conviction that would have prevented the sale of any firearms to him, according to the Pentagon Inspector General’s report.
“The government and Academy failed these families and they should both be held responsible and face the consequences,” Alsaffar said. “Had they done what the law required them to do, the shooter wouldn’t have been able to get a firearm. They both failed to prevent this tragedy.”