Dicks Sporting Goods Selling Ar-15s Again
A statement from Dick'due south Sporting Appurtenances said, "We have to help solve the trouble that's in front of us. Gun violence is an epidemic." Scott Olson/Getty Images hide caption
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Scott Olson/Getty Images
A statement from Dick's Sporting Goods said, "Nosotros have to help solve the problem that's in forepart of the states. Gun violence is an epidemic."
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Updated at seven:xl p.m. ET
Walmart and Dick's Sporting Goods say they won't sell guns to customers under 21, and both are putting new restrictions on ammunition sales.
Dick's Sporting Appurtenances, one of the largest sports retailers in the U.S., has announced information technology is immediately catastrophe its sales of military-fashion semi-automatic rifles and is requiring all customers to be older than 21 to buy a firearm at its stores. Additionally, the company no longer will sell high-capacity magazines.
Walmart, which ended sales of modern sporting rifles such as AR-15s in 2015, has announced that information technology is raising the minimum age for purchasing firearms and ammunition from xviii to 21. The company notes that it does not sell crash-land stocks, high-chapters magazines and similar accessories.
Walmart is likewise removing items from its website "resembling assail-style rifles, including nonlethal airsoft guns and toys" — like the air gun Tamir Rice was playing with when he was shot past a Cleveland constabulary officer who thought the 12-year-old was armed.
Dick's Sporting Goods CEO Ed Stack announced the house's decision on ABC's Good Morning America on Wednesday, the same day that survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Schoolhouse returned to class. Stack said the xix-twelvemonth-former gunman allegedly behind that massacre, which claimed 17 lives and wounded many more in Parkland, Fla., had purchased a firearm from the retailer last November.
While that the weapon — a shotgun — was not used in the shooting, the CEO said the revelation deeply afflicted Stack and his colleagues at Dick's.
"Nosotros did everything by the book. We did everything that the law required, and nevertheless he was able to buy a gun," Stack said. "When we looked at that, nosotros said the systems that are in place across the board but aren't constructive enough to keep the states from selling a gun like that.
"And and then we've decided we're not going to sell the assault-blazon rifles any longer."
The company, which operates more than 715 locations, already had pulled attack-style weapons from Dick'south stores after the 2012 Sandy Claw shooting; now it will also stop selling the weapons at its subsidiary Field & Stream stores.
Stack said the decision to eliminate set on-style rifles is permanent.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the victims and their loved ones," the company said in a statement issued Midweek. "Just thoughts and prayers are not enough. We accept tremendous respect and adoration for the students organizing and making their voices heard regarding gun violence in schools and elsewhere in our country.
"Nosotros take heard yous. The nation has heard y'all. ... The systems in identify are not effective to protect our kids and our citizens."
The statement asserted the company's support for the Second Amendment merely continued, "we take to help solve the problem that'due south in front of us. Gun violence is an epidemic."
In improver to changing its own policies, the company issued a plea to elected officials to enact "common-sense gun reform," specifically calling for the post-obit regulations:
- Ban assault-way firearms
- Raise the minimum historic period to purchase firearms to 21
- Ban high-capacity magazines, as well as crash-land stocks — gun accessories that allow semi-automated rifles to operate like fully automatic weapons
- Require universal background checks that include relevant mental health information and previous interactions with the police
- Ensure a complete universal database of those banned from buying firearms
- Shut the private sale and gun bear witness loopholes that waive background checks
With their moves, Dick's and Walmart join a host of major companies that made changes in reaction to the Parkland shooting. Equally NPR's Amy Held reported terminal week, many other loftier-profile companies — from MetLife Insurance and Offset National Depository financial institution of Omaha to Symantec and Hertz — have ended their corporate partnerships with the National Rifle Clan.
Those moves take not been without controversy.
Earlier this calendar week, for case, Georgia Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle threatened to "kill whatever tax legislation that benefits" Delta Air Lines later the company concluded its own relationship with the NRA. Delta, which is based in Atlanta, had announced two days earlier that "we volition be requesting that the NRA remove our data from their website" — a decision Cagle described as an attack on conservatives.
Asked about the potential for pushback among gun rights advocates, Stack acknowledged the movement "isn't going to make anybody happy. But when nosotros look at what those kids and the parents and the heroes in the school, what they did, our view was: If the kids can be brave enough to organize like this, we can be brave plenty to get these [firearms] out of here."
"We're staunch supporters of the 2nd Amendment," he added. "I'thousand a gun possessor myself. Nosotros've only decided that based on what's happened and with these guns, we don't want to be part of this story."
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/28/589436112/dicks-sporting-goods-ends-sale-of-assault-style-rifles-citing-florida-shooting
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