Dicks Bans Semi Automatic Weapons Again
A statement from Dick's Sporting Appurtenances said, "We have to help solve the problem that'south in front of us. Gun violence is an epidemic." Scott Olson/Getty Images hide caption
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A argument from Dick's Sporting Goods said, "We have to help solve the trouble that's in front of us. Gun violence is an epidemic."
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Updated at vii:40 p.grand. 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 Goods, i of the largest sports retailers in the U.S., has appear it is immediately ending its sales of armed services-style semi-automatic rifles and is requiring all customers to be older than 21 to buy a firearm at its stores. Additionally, the visitor no longer will sell loftier-capacity magazines.
Walmart, which ended sales of modern sporting rifles such as AR-15s in 2015, has appear 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 bump stocks, high-capacity magazines and similar accessories.
Walmart is also removing items from its website "resembling assault-way rifles, including nonlethal airsoft guns and toys" — similar the air gun Tamir Rice was playing with when he was shot by a Cleveland police officeholder who thought the 12-year-old was armed.
Dick'southward Sporting Goods CEO Ed Stack announced the house'due south conclusion on ABC'southward Good Morning America on Midweek, the aforementioned 24-hour interval that survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Schoolhouse returned to class. Stack said the xix-twelvemonth-one-time gunman allegedly backside that massacre, which claimed 17 lives and wounded many more in Parkland, Fla., had purchased a firearm from the retailer terminal November.
While that the weapon — a shotgun — was not used in the shooting, the CEO said the revelation deeply affected Stack and his colleagues at Dick's.
"We did everything by the book. We did everything that the law required, and however he was able to buy a gun," Stack said. "When we looked at that, we said the systems that are in place across the board but aren't effective enough to proceed u.s. from selling a gun like that.
"And so nosotros've decided we're not going to sell the assail-blazon rifles whatever longer."
The company, which operates more 715 locations, already had pulled assail-style weapons from Dick's stores after the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting; at present it volition also stop selling the weapons at its subsidiary Field & Stream stores.
Stack said the determination to eliminate assault-style rifles is permanent.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the victims and their loved ones," the company said in a argument issued Midweek. "Only thoughts and prayers are non plenty. We accept tremendous respect and admiration for the students organizing and making their voices heard regarding gun violence in schools and elsewhere in our country.
"We take heard you. The nation has heard you. ... The systems in place are not effective to protect our kids and our citizens."
The argument asserted the company's back up for the Second Amendment but continued, "we accept to help solve the trouble that's in front of us. Gun violence is an epidemic."
In addition to changing its ain policies, the visitor issued a plea to elected officials to enact "mutual-sense gun reform," specifically calling for the following regulations:
- Ban assault-style firearms
- Heighten the minimum historic period to purchase firearms to 21
- Ban high-capacity magazines, also as bump stocks — gun accessories that permit semi-automatic rifles to operate like fully automatic weapons
- Require universal background checks that include relevant mental health information and previous interactions with the constabulary
- Ensure a complete universal database of those banned from buying firearms
- Shut the private auction and gun show loopholes that waive background checks
With their moves, Dick'south and Walmart join a host of major companies that made changes in reaction to the Parkland shooting. As NPR'south Amy Held reported concluding week, many other high-profile companies — from MetLife Insurance and First National Depository financial institution of Omaha to Symantec and Hertz — have ended their corporate partnerships with the National Rifle Association.
Those moves have not been without controversy.
Before this week, for instance, Georgia Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle threatened to "kill any tax legislation that benefits" Delta Air Lines after the company ended its own human relationship with the NRA. Delta, which is based in Atlanta, had announced ii days earlier that "we volition be requesting that the NRA remove our information from their website" — a decision Cagle described every bit an attack on conservatives.
Asked near the potential for pushback among gun rights advocates, Stack acknowledged the move "isn't going to brand everyone happy. But when we look at what those kids and the parents and the heroes in the school, what they did, our view was: If the kids tin be brave enough to organize similar this, nosotros tin be dauntless plenty to get these [firearms] out of hither."
"We're staunch supporters of the Second Subpoena," he added. "I'grand a gun owner myself. Nosotros've just decided that based on what'due south happened and with these guns, nosotros 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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