Dick’s Sporting Goods, one of the nation’s largest sports retailers, has announced that it will immediately end sales of assault-style rifles in its stores.
On Wednesday, retail giant Dick’s Sporting Goods made the announcement that starting immediately, it will no longer sell assault-style rifles or high capacity magazines and that it would not sell any gun to anyone under 21 years of age, regardless of local laws.
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The announcement comes two weeks after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 students and adults were killed when gunman Nikolas Cruz opened fire with an AR-15. According to Dick’s CEO Edward Stack, the decision to stop selling assault rifles is a result of the tragic shooting.
“When we saw what happened in Parkland, we were so disturbed and upset. We love these kids and their rallying cry, ‘enough is enough.’ It got to us,” Stack told The New Work Times. “We’re going to take a stand and step up and tell people our view and, hopefully, bring people along into the conversation.”
Shortly after news of the shooting broke, Stack says that the retailer began scouring records, soon discovering that it had legally sold a gun to Cruz in November, though it wasn’t the gun or type of gun used in the massacre.
“But it came to us that we could have been a part of this story,” he said. “We said, ‘We don’t want to be a part of this any longer.”
While the company briefly removed assault-style rifles from its retail stores after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Stack says that this time the changes will be permanent, stating “We don’t want to be a part of a mass shooting.”
“If the kids in Parkland are being brave enough to stand up and do this, we can be brave enough to stand up with them,” he concluded.
News of the move comes as several companies have announced the cancellation of their partnerships with the National Rifle Association due to the non-profit organization’s anti-gun control political stance. Within the last few days, Delta and United Airlines, First National Bank of Omaha, MetLife insurance, TrueCar, Avis Budger Group, Enterprise National and Symantec were among the companies to announce they were discontinuing any involvement, donations or support towards the group. FedEx remains one of the few companies refusing to sever ties.
