Dick's Sporting Goods Lost $250 Million, Destroyed $5 Million Rifles After Weapon Sales Ban

True to his word, Ed Stack, CEO of Dick's Sporting Goods, has gone ahead and destroyed the guns and ammunition he said he'd get rid of as part of his company's promise to no longer sell certain guns to the American public.

Dick’s entered the arena of anti-gun activism on Feb. 28, 2018 when it announced a ban on sales of assault-style rifles immediately after the massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Parkland, Florida on Feb. 14 where 17 people (mostly students) were shot dead. Stack was taken aback by the revelation the Parkland shooter, Nikolas Cruz, bought a shotgun from one of his Field & Stream stores.

"We found out that we sold this kid a shotgun. That's when I said, 'We're done,'" Stack told CBS News.

He also banned sales of high-capacity magazines and guns to persons under 21 years old.

This is the second time Dick’s has removed firearms from its stores. In a move separate from the Parkland ban, Dick’s removed hunting items from 10 stores that were sales underperformers.

Stack and his wife, Donna, later met with the survivors of the Parkland shooting, an emotional encounter that deeply moved them.

Ever since Parkland, Stack and his wife have struggled with the moral implications of continuing to sell firearms at Dick's. But the meeting with the Parkland survivors clinched Stack's decision that Dick's would no longer sell any firearm to anyone under the age of 21.

Stack estimated this decision would cost the company about a quarter of a billion dollars. It turns out, Stack's prediction was spot on.

"[We lost] about a quarter of a billion! Pretty close," he said.

He also had destroyed all the remaining AR-15-style assault rifles Dick's still had in stock. These weapons were worth some $5 million.

"I said, 'You know what? If we really think these things should be off the street, we need to destroy them,'" he said.

"I don't understand how somebody, with everything that's gone on, could actually sit there and say, 'I don't think we need to do a background check on people who buy guns.' It's just, it's ridiculous.”