It's not distancing from gun owners, if there's money there they will chase it. As mentioned previously, hunting optics aren't their bread and butter and the margins weren't worth it to them, and this is coming from a former Nikon NA rep at 2020 Shot Show.
The money just wasn't there, and with their precipitous decline in the imaging market, specifically with their camera line, they started a 2Q restructuring in 2019 and that left rifle scopes out in the cold. They have been hemorrhaging for a while now and some of their lines had to go. Their identity is in the camera business, not sport optics.
