Guns Down America, a gun violence prevention group formed in 2016, has released new grades for its Business Must Act campaign, which assess large corporations based on their gun policies, donations, and statements about gun violence. As Guns Down America notes, “We believe that everybody has a role to play in making our communities safer — and that includes corporate America.”
Amalgamated Bank, Chipotle, Costco, Starbucks, and Target all received A’s, while a surprising number of corporations — including Best Buy, Capital One, Home Depot, and McDonald’s — received failing grades. A few sporting goods retailers received grades as well, as discussed below.
According to the Business Must Act website, the companies were graded based on their financial ties to the gun industry and gun lobby, whether or not they allow customers to carry firearms inside their stores, and donations to gun-lobby-backed lawmakers, among other criteria.
bass pro shops
Guns Down America gave Bass Pro Shops, which also owns Cabela’s, an F because they “not only sell guns and ammunition, they offer deals such as ‘NRA Freedom Days’” — providing discounts on guns to NRA members and gift cards to those who renew their NRA memberships — “and have generally enjoyed a tight relationship with the NRA and National Shooting Sports Foundation,” the gun industry’s trade association. Additionally, according to Guns Down America, Bass Pro Shops CEO Johnny Morris has donated over $28,000 to NRA-backed members of Congress since the 2020 election, and the flagship Bass Pro Shops store in Springfield, Missouri, is home to the NRA’s National Sporting Arms Museum.
A USA Today report published in February 2024 found that 49 Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s locations had been included in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) list of gun dealers who sold a significant number of crime guns in 2022.
academy sports
Another sporting goods retailer, Academy Sports, received a D from Guns Down America because it “[s]ells firearms, including semiautomatic weapons,” as well as “ammunition through the mail with no ID required.” Last year, an Everytown investigation revealed how easy it is for minors to purchase AR-15 ammunition online, despite minimum age requirements.
Guns Down America also notes that Academy Sports “paid a $2.5 million settlement to the families of three people shot to death by a serial killer who purchased his guns from the business using a straw buyer,” and points to a Texas Observer report to say that Academy Sports “stores are the source for many trafficked guns.”
Finally, Guns Down American notes that after the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, was committed with a Sig Sauer MCX semi-automatic rifle, Academy Sports “stores removed assault-style rifles from display cases and ‘high visibility areas’” but did not stop selling them.
dick’s sporting goods and walmart
The only sporting goods retailers on the Business Must Act list that received positive grades were Dick’s Sporting Goods and Walmart. Guns Down America gave Dick’s Sporting Goods an A- because after the Parkland shooting, it “[e]nded gun sales in hundreds of stores, destroyed $5 million worth of assault-style rifles, and removed high-capacity magazines from inventory.” The company also “became a vocal advocate for gun reform,” with its former CEO, Ed Stack, making “multiple calls for Congress to take immediate action to address America’s gun violence epidemic.”
The National Shooting Sports Foundation said these actions were “detrimental to the best interests of the Foundation” and kicked Dick’s Sporting Goods out of its membership, as discussed here.
Guns Down America notes that guns “made up less than 5%” of the company’s total revenue in 2022,” and more recently, Dick’s Sporting Goods stated that it had discontinued all firearm and ammunition sales in a 2024 shareholder filing.
Walmart received a B because it “has publicly supported gun reform legislation and requested that customers not open carry firearms in stores.” Additionally, Guns Down America notes that Walmart stopped selling assault weapons, handguns, and ammunition for those weapons in 2019.
To learn more about Guns Down America, click here.