› Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods take a harder line on guns,
Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods said Wednesday they are stopping firearm sales to those under the age of 21 in the wake of the Feb. 14 shooting by a teenager that killed 17 students and educators in Parkland, Fla.
Dick’s Sporting Goods, which operates more than 700 stores including one in Hamilton Village on Gunbarrel Road in Chattanooga, also will immediately stop selling AR-15 rifles and other assault-style guns as its CEO took on the National Rifle Association by demanding tougher gun laws,
“When we saw what the kids were going through and the grief of the parents and the kids who were killed in Parkland, we felt we needed to do something,” Chairman and CEO Ed Stack said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Walmart, which stopped selling the AR-15 in 2015, said it was raising the age restriction on gun purchases to 21 years old and removing items on its website “resembling assaultstyle rifles.”
“We take seriously our obligation to be a responsible seller of firearms and go beyond federal law by requiring customers to pass a background check before purchasing any firearm,” the world’s biggest retailer said in a statement Wednesday night. “Our heritage as a company has always been serving sportsmen and hunters, and we will continue to to so in a responsible way.”
The change in sales practices, and the emphatic words from Stack, are the latest examples of a falling-out between some in corporate America and the gun lobby. Several major corporations, including MetLife, Hertz and Delta Air Lines, have cut ties with the NRA since the Florida tragedy.
The announcement by Dick’s Sporting Goods drew hundreds of thousands of responses for and against on the company’s Facebook page.
Dick had cut off sales of assault-style weapons after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. But sales had resumed at its smaller chain of Field & Stream stores, which consisted of 35 outlets in 16 states as of October.
On Wednesday, Stack said that would end, and he called on lawmakers to act now.
He urged them to ban assault-style firearms, bump stocks and highcapacity magazines and raise the minimum age to buy firearms to 21. He said universal background checks should be required, and there should be a complete database of those banned from buying firearms. He also called for the closing of the private sale and gun show loophole that enables purchasers to escape background checks.
“We support and respect the Second Amendment, and we recognize and appreciate that the vast majority of gun owners in this country are responsible, law-abiding citizens,” Stack said in a letter. “But we have to help solve the problem that’s in front of us. Gun violence is an epidemic that’s taking the lives of too many people, including the brightest hope for the future of America — our kids.”
The NRA has pushed back aggressively against calls for raising age limits for guns or restricting the sale of assault-style weapons. Calls to the NRA were not immediately returned.
Stack also revealed that Nikolas Cruz, the 19-yearold arrested in the Florida attack, had bought a shotgun at a Dick’s store within the past four months.
“It was not the gun, nor type of gun, he used in the shooting,” the CEO wrote. “But it could have been. Clearly this indicates on so many levels that the systems in place are not effective to protect our kids and our citizens.”