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Amanda Wood s from the NY Post reports that Dick’s turned $5 million worth of “assault weapons” into scrap metal. From her report:
“Ed Stack, who has been the CEO and chairman of the chain since 1984, told “CBS News Sunday” how he came to the controversial decision.
“I said, ‘You know what? If we really think these things should be off the street, then we need to destroy them,’ ” he said.
The billionaire businessman discusses the move — what he calls his “toughest business decision” — also in his book “It’s How We Play the Game: Build a Business. Take a Stand. Make a Difference,” which goes on sale Tuesday.
“Despite being a gun owner himself who’d grown up around firearms, Ed’s strategy included destroying the $5 million of assault-style-type rifles then in DICK’s inventor,” says a summary of the book on Amazon. “It was a profit-risking policy that would earn the outrage of some — even threats of harm — but turn Ed into a national hero.”
Dick’s was one of the biggest national sellers of firearms until 2012, when 20 students and six adults were slaughtered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Afterward, Stack ordered all AR-15 rifles — similar to the one used by the gunman in the massacre — removed from every Dick’s Sporting Goods store nationwide. “All we were going to do was just take it off the shelf and not say anything,” the CEO told CBS.
But when 17 people were slaughtered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last year, that was the last straw for Stack. “We found out that we sold this kid a shotgun,” Stack said. “That’s when I said, ‘We’re done.’
“Even though it wasn’t the gun he used, it could have been,” he said.
The retail giant announced that it would not sell any guns to anyone under age 21 going forward — and quietly reduced its remaining $5 million inventory of assaulting weapons into scrap metal, Stack said.”
See also:
CEO Ed Stack is okay with Dick’s Sporting Goods’ $150M loss from gun control stance
Pro-gun control Dick’s Sporting Goods sales down 4%; will close 35 stores
What do you know: Dick’s Sporting Goods misses 2nd quarter sales expectations
DCG