Dick’s Sporting Goods is weighing whether to stop selling firearms, a move that comes as competitor Walmart faces heightened pressure to end the sale of guns altogether following a mass shooting at a store in Texas.
The company, one of the largest firearm retailers in the U.S., is expected to announce with its quarterly results Thursday the conclusions from a test of whether to leave the “hunt” business, according to CNN.
As Dick’s mulled whether to end the sale of firearms, the Coraopolis, Pennsylvania-based company stopped selling guns and hunting gear in 10 of its more than 720 stores last year and eliminated those products from 125 more locations this year.
The sporting goods retailer said it would examine how the move impacted overall store sales and was expected to finish its review this month.
Dick’s first considered ending gun sales in early 2018 after a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, left 17 dead, but ultimately decided not to do so.
“At the time we felt it was a part of our DNA and we should stay in it,” CEO Edward Stack told CNN last year. “So many people in the country are law-abiding citizens who use firearms to hunt, to use from a recreation standpoint. We didn’t think it was right to exit the business completely.”
The retailer did, however, stop selling AR-15-style rifles and raised the minimum wage to buy a gun to 21. In the immediate wake of its tighter restrictions for gun sales last year, Dick’s saw sales fall.
Walmart, too, stopped selling military-style rifles after the shooting in Parkland and has not sold handguns for several years. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company also increased the minimum age to buy a firearm or ammunition to 21.
But Walmart has faced calls this year from gun control activists, celebrities, and Democratic presidential contenders to end all firearm and ammunition sales after a gunman killed 22 in a shooting at its store in El Paso, Texas, this month.
Speaking with shareholders last week, CEO Doug McMillon did not indicate any changes to Walmart’s firearms policy but said the company is “encouraged” by the support for strengthening background checks and efforts to ensure firearms are removed from those who pose a danger to themselves or others.
