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Retailers Walmart, Dick’s take harder line on guns

A Dick's Sporting Goods store is seen in Arlington Heights, Ill., Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018. Dick's Sporting Goods announced Wednesday that it will immediately end sales of assault-style rifles and high capacity magazines at all of its stores and ban the sale of all guns to anyone under 21. Dick's had cut off sales of assault-style weapons at Dick's stores following the Sandy Hook school shooting. But Dick's owns dozens of its Field & Stream stores, where there has been no such ban in place. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
A Dick's Sporting Goods store is seen in Arlington Heights, Ill., Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018. Dick's Sporting Goods announced Wednesday that it will immediately end sales of assault-style rifles and high capacity magazines at all of its stores and ban the sale of all guns to anyone under 21. Dick's had cut off sales of assault-style weapons at Dick's stores following the Sandy Hook school shooting. But Dick's owns dozens of its Field & Stream stores, where there has been no such ban in place. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh) A Dick's Sporting Goods store is seen in Arlington Heights, Ill., Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018. Dick's Sporting Goods announced Wednesday that it will immediately end sales of assault-style rifles and high capacity magazines at all of its stores and ban the sale of all guns to anyone under 21. Dick's had cut off sales of assault-style weapons at Dick's stores following the Sandy Hook school shooting. But Dick's owns dozens of its Field & Stream stores, where there has been no such ban in place. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

By Associated Press 6 min read

NEW YORK (AP) – Dick’s Sporting Goods and Walmart took steps Wednesday to restrict gun sales, adding two retail heavyweights to the growing rift between corporate America and the gun lobby.

Dick’s said it will immediately stop selling assault-style rifles and ban the sale of all guns to anyone under 21. Its CEO took on the National Rifle Association by demanding tougher gun laws after the massacre in Florida.

Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, followed late Wednesday saying it will no longer sell firearms and ammunition to people younger than 21. It had stopped selling AR-15s and other semi-automatic weapons in 2015, citing weak sales.

photo In this Oct. 18, 2016, photo, Chairman and CEO of DICK’S Sporting Goods Edward W. Stack poses for a photo as he visits a new store at the Baybrook Mall in the Houston. Stack is issuing a letter Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018, about his decision to end the sale of assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines at stores. (Photo by Scott Dalton/Invision for DICK’S Sporting Goods/AP Images)
photo In this June 5, 2017, file photo, customers shop for food at Walmart in Salem, N.H. Walmart says it will no longer sell firearms and ammunition to people younger than 21. The retailer’s new policy comes after Dick’s Sporting Goods announced earlier Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018, that it would restrict the sale of firearms to those under 21 years old. It didn’t mention ammunition. Walmart says the decision came after a review of its firearm sales policy in light of the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

The announcements from the major national retailers came as students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, returned to class for the first time since a teenager killed 17 students and educators with an AR-15 rifle two weeks ago.

“When we saw what the kids were going through and the grief of the parents and the kids who were killed in Parkland, we felt we needed to do something,” Dick’s Chairman and CEO Ed Stack said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”