big box stores less selection?

[bnolsen]

I did most of my buying in the late 90's and early 2000's. Just for fun the past few days I've gone into sporting goods stores. The sad thing I noticed is that every one I went to the gun sections were all much smaller than they were. The guy at Sports Authority said they dropped carrying anything "non hunting" over a year ago, including any and all pistol sales. They wanted a driver's license to even look at a rifle. Gander Mountain used to have tons of selection, bersas, czs, etc, a really big walkthroug section for handling their rifles and shotguns. Now just a couple of pistol display cases and just one wall with rifles.

So what happened? Based on gun sales in the past years you would think anyone wanting to make more money would have been expanding these sections with better selections? They can't compete price wise? The government went after these big corps to drop gun sales?

I kind of feel offended at these stores, the policies are waaaay less friendly than they were when I remember.

 

[au01st]

Gander Mountain in Auburn had one of the biggest gun selections I've ever seen. If I had to guess, there were probably over 1,000 on display. Pistols, rifles, & shotguns, however they were out of any/all AR style rifles.

 

[kcgunesq]

I don't have much history with Sports Authority, but I went to one last summer looking to replace a basketball backboard. Seemed like a decent enough store, maybe a tiny bit better than Dick's, but nothing that I could really put into words. As we walking out, I saw they had a small gun counter. Given its apparent size, I didn't even investigate. I just couldn't imagine that they had anything I wanted at a price I wanted to pay.

Not really helpful, I know.

Cabelas on the other hand, (normally) has an excellent selection ranging from Mosin Nagants to Bushmaster, Wilson Combat to Glock.