Dick’s Sporting Goods won’t be returning their unsold assault-style rifles to manufacturers. Instead, the company says it’s chosen to destroy all of them.
Dick’s announced[1] in February ― following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida ― that it would stop selling assault-style rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines in all of its Field & Stream stores, where these items had been sold by the large sports retailer.
The company also announced that it would no longer sell guns to people under the age of 21 at any of its stores.
A company spokeswoman told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette[2] last week that the retailer was “in the process” of destroying the unsold inventory of rifles, which include AR-15s and other military-style semi-automatic weapons, at its four distribution centers nationwide.
“We are destroying the firearms in accordance with federal guidelines and regulations,” the representative said, adding that weapon parts would be sent to a salvage company to be recycled.
Dick’s did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for clarification on how many guns it was destroying or how the company was going to dispose of them.
The National Rifle Association, in a Tuesday Twitter post, lambasted the company’s decision to destroy the weapons. “What a waste,” the gun group wrote.
The NRA and other gun-rights advocates have assailed Dick’s for taking a political stance that could end up hurting its business, with some calling for a boycott[3] of the retailer. But the company’s stock price has remained relatively unchanged[4] since February.
Under federal regulations[5], a gun must be “cut, severed or mangled in such manner
