Tampa Bay Rays star player Evan Longoria reported to police that thieves broke into his Florida rental home on the weekend and stole his AK-47 assault rifle.
The 25-year-old gun enthusiast said the assault weapon was taken on Saturday from a rental house in Port Charlotte, Florida, which Longoria is sharing with two teammates, the St Petersburg Times newspaper reported on Monday.
No arrests have been made and police said Longoria would not be charged, as he had a permit to own the high-powered rifle first manufactured in Russia.
Third baseman Longoria refused to go into detail about why he needed an AK-47, which can be bought in the US for as little as US$300, the Times said.
“It’s a personal item,” Longoria said. “Obviously, they [authorities] are going to say things that are taken. I think everything within the house is personal and we’ll just leave it at that.”
The Major League Baseball club is in Port Charlotte for the team’s annual spring training camp to get ready for the 2011 season. Police said the thieves took an estimated US$56,000 in property from the three players.
“The only time a person would need a rifle of that magnitude [outside a shooting range] is if they’re fending off zombies,” Fritz Casper, who works at a Florida shooting range, told the Times.
Longoria said he doesn’t believe the incident will be a distraction for the approaching season. The Rays’ first game is against Baltimore tomorrow.
“This is, hopefully, just a one-day thing where we talk about this and leave it behind us,” he said. “We didn’t lose anything that is going to prevent us from playing baseball. Hopefully we can find out who did this and move forward from there.”
MLB tries to discourage its players from owning guns and conducts annual seminars to warn them of the consequences. The National Football League, National Hockey League and National Basketball Association have similar anti-gun programs.
Former Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas, now with the Orlando Magic, was suspended for most of the 2009-2010 NBA season after he admitted to having guns in his locker at the team’s Verizon Center arena.
Arenas pleaded guilty in court to carrying an unlicensed handgun and in March last year he was sentenced to two years probation and 30 days in a halfway house.
Last year, ex-New Jersey Nets player Jayson Williams was sentenced to five years in prison in the shooting death of a limousine driver.
Former Utah Jazz All-Star Karl Malone has been a spokesman for the National Rifle Association.
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