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Dick's Sporting Goods to stop selling assault-style rifles

Dick's store
A gun display at Dick's in Paramus, New Jersey. Photo: Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Dick's Sporting Goods will stop selling assault-style rifles, end the sale of high-capacity magazines, and stop selling guns to customers under the age of 21, CEO Ed Stack said in a Wednesday interview with ABC's Good Morning America.

“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 … We’re going to take a stand and step up and tell people our view and, hopefully, bring people along into the conversation.”
— Stack to the N.Y. Times

One thing to watch with companies cutting gun ties is how long it lasts, Axios' Dan Primack notes. After Sandy Hook, for example, Dick's Sporting Goods pulled assault-style rifles from its shelves. But a few months later they re-appeared at the company's outdoor and hunting retail chain, Field & Stream.

  • Stack told ABC the changes at Dick's will be permanent this time.
  • Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz bought a shotgun from a Dick's in November 2017. It was not the weapon he used to kill 17 students and teachers at Stoneman Douglas High School, but the purchase motivated the company to take action.
  • “[I]t came to us that we could have been a part of this story,’’ he told ABC. “We said, ‘We don’t want to be a part of this any longer."

Go deeper: Companies face pressure on guns in the wake of the Parkland shooting

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