Dick's Sporting Goods Destroyed $5M Worth of Sporting Rifles to Keep Them 'Off the Street'

Brittany M. Hughes | October 7, 2019
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Dick’s Sporting Goods has destroyed about $5 million worth of sporting rifles – including the infamous AR-15 – rather than simply return them to the manufacturer after the company announced earlier this year they’d stop selling certain guns to help curb gun violence.

Ed Stack, the CEO of Dick's Sporting Goods, told CBS he decided to have his company destroy the rifles to keep them “off the street.”

On top of that, the assault-style rifles he still had in stock – about $5 million worth of inventory – he turned into scrap metal. 

"I said, 'You know what? If we really think these things should be off the street, we need to destroy them,'" Stack told CBS, adding he made the decision after he and his wife took a trip to Florida to meet with Parkland survivors.

On top of destroying their inventory of sporting rifles, Dick’s Sporting Goods also announced they’d stop selling firearms of any kind to individuals under 21 in all 720-plus stores. Stack estimated the decision cost his company around $250 million in total.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke praised the company’s decision to stop selling constitutionally-protected firearms to Americans, saying Dick’s Sporting Goods is “doing more to keep Americans safe from assault weapons than Congress.”
 


(Cover Photo: Vitaly V. Kuzmin)

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