Rather then return them to gun manufacturers, Dick's Sporting Goods has announced a plan to destroy the "assault-style rifles and accessories" they agreed to pull from their shelves back in February. The news was first reported by The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
A spokesman had told the Post-Gazette that Dick's had already begun the process of destroying the weapons and ammunition "in accordance with federal guidelines and regulations."
As reported by The New York Times, this decision comes after they stopped selling assault-style rifles at their Field & Stream stores, and also after they stopped selling firearms/ammunition to buyers who are 21 and younger.
The move is part of corporate America's response to the public sentiment about guns in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that took place on Feb. 14. Other companies that have also agreed to stop selling guns to people under 21 include Walmart, L.L. Bean, and Kroger.
The bank Citigroup also said they'd restrict their business partners' sale of firearms, "demanding" that they not be sold to people 21 and younger who have not passed a background check.
Further still, travel companies that include: Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Hertz, and Avis, announced they would no longer have discount programs for the National Rifle Association's 5-plus million members.
The NYT reports that an NRA spokesman declined to comment on these decisions by the aforementioned companies, including the most recent one by Dick's. However the NRA's Twitter account did comment on the move on Tuesday morning:
In February, longtime Dick's CEO Edward W. Stack acknowledged that the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooter, Nikolas Cruz, had bought a shotgun from the company last November. "It was not the gun, nor type of gun, he used in the shooting," Stack said at the time. "But it could have been." Previously, following the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Newton, Connecticut back in December 2012, the company stopped selling assault-style weapons.
For those wondering, federal law dictates that a person buying a handgun from a firearms dealer must be 21+, but semiautomatic rifles and other firearms can be sold to 18-year-olds.
