Art Eatman
Staff in Memoriam
All of us kids during WW II killed lots of Japs and Nazis with our BB guns, but I don't really remember killing "Axis". That was more of a politician's word than a common-usage word.
Most people working at Savage are probably way too young to have made the connection.
Brian aka Peetza
I suspect they were going for something close to the two bolded definitions. As if to say that the product line is the standard by which others are referenced.
It was a bunch of engineer / geeks sitting around "brainstorming" and picked a name that they liked but fell flat on the general purchasing public. These types of decisions are usually left to executives long since removed from their true customers...
Frankly, I think too many people are just looking for reasons to be offended.