The CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods took aim at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a recent interview saying that the Kentucky senator didn’t have the “guts” to schedule a vote on a bill that would require universal background checks for gun sales.
Ed Stack, who terminated the sales of AR-15 rifles from his stores last year, has changed his tune on gun control in the United States. He said to Business Insider, while promoting his new book It’s How We Play the Game, that he was particularly troubled after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting in early 2018. Stack learned that Dick’s had sold a shotgun to suspected Parkland gunman Nikolas Cruz just two months before the shooting that claimed the lives of 17 students and faculty.
“We found out that we sold [suspected shooter Cruz] a shotgun two months before,” Stack said. “When that happened, I said, ‘This system is broken. This kid should never have been able to buy a gun.'” Dick’s, a federally licensed firearm dealer, would have already been required to conduct a background check on Cruz at the time of the aforementioned sale. A shotgun was not used in the deadly shooting in Parkland, and the majority of Dick’s locations continue to sell shotguns.
Stack and several other large corporation CEOs penned a letter to Congress in support of the HR 8 bill, which would require all gun sales in the U.S. to conduct a criminal background check. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives in February but has not yet been scheduled in the Senate, where McConnell decides which issues will come to a vote.
“I wish he’d have the guts to bring it to a vote,” Stack said of the eight-month period between the House passing HR 8 and now. Critics of HR 8, including several Republican lawmakers and the National Rifle Association, believe that the institution of such a bill would greatly hinder rights to defense provided by the Second Amendment.
HR 8, originally proposed by Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson of California, would require background checks at every level, including informal sales between acquaintances. A small exemption that prohibits any financial transaction exists in the bill that would allow a “loan” between immediate family members. HR 8 also bans firearm possession among adults aged 18-20, which is currently permitted in most states. Sales from federally licensed gun stores to persons under age 21 have been banned since 1968.
Stack’s characterization of HR 8 reflected his firm belief that background checks should be universal in the U.S. “I don’t know how you can cerebrally think about guns and say, ‘Yeah, we don’t need to have a background check. It’s OK,'” he said. “Basically, anybody who’s old enough can buy a gun … It’s not a political hot button any longer,” Stack also said. “I don’t know what McConnell’s afraid of.”
[Related: McConnell pledges action on gun control measures if backed by Trump]
