Dick’s Sporting Goods Destroyed $5 Million Worth Of Assualt Weapons After Storewide Ban

By Mayukh Saha / Truth Theory
Mutually assured destruction is the key notion of almost every country across the globe. To ensure that, every country expands its arms production vis-à-vis the other countries. The United States stands out to be a major producer of weapons and what aggravates that is the income it generates.

As of the records of 2016, the US produced guns in the figures of 10 million of which two million were assault-style and semiautomatic weapons. The National Shooting Sports Foundation stated that around $51 billion of the country’s economy was spent in such production. The NRA had spent around $50 million to acquire support from the lawmakers. Hence, millions of dollars were spent only to propel corruption and expand the arms market.

However, even today, there are people like Ed Stack who value innocent human lives over business profits. Stack, who is the CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods, incurred a loss of $250 million only to restore humanity in the world.

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A major incident that happened in Parkland, Florida on February 14th, 2018, changed his idea about the gun business. On that day, a gunman had shot 17 innocent people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and since then Stack decided on stopping the selling of the assault-style rifles completely. This would mean the removal of the assault-style rifles from all of his 729 stores in around 47 states within the United States. They had previously mentioned about not selling any weapons or firearms to people below 21 years of age after the incident of shooting at the Sandy Hook in 2012. Stack mentioned that in spite of doing everything by the book and the requirements of the law, the man could buy the gun and such an incident took place.

Dick’s Sporting Good’s C.E.O. Ed Stack on permanently removing all assault-style rifles from stores- “To think about the loss and the grief that those kids and those parents had, we said, ‘We need to do something, and we’re taking these guns out of all of our stores permanently.” pic.twitter.com/PvoG9unnqL

— Matt Keller (@MattKellerABC7) February 28, 2018

Dick’s decisions paved the way for some important legislations such that there would be a ban on assault-style arms. Elected officials were implored to raise the minimum age for buying firearms at least to 21 years, ban high capacity magazines. The purchase of firearms must require a universal background check that includes mental health details. A detailed universal database of the ones banned from buying firearms should be ensured and the sale of guns privately or in shows should be banned as well.

At present, 125 of Dick’s 729 stores have stopped selling guns of all kinds and Stack is surely envisaging on expanding that number. Such a brave move was not smooth and did cost him a heavy price. A loss of $0.25 billion was incurred by the company. During the ban, there was a stock of 5 million dollars. Dick turned all those assault rifles into scrap metal.

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Nobody likes war and violence, and to prevent that, removal of these weapons off the arms market needs to be ensured. If profit motive is kept aside thinking about humanity at large, peace may ensure back on earth.