[USA Today] Dick's Sporting Goods announced Tuesday it will remove firearms from 125 of its stores, according to news reports. The move follows the company's ban on assault-style weapons last year in the wake of the Parkland shooting.CEO Ed Stack said Tuesday that Dick's will pull hunting gear from 125 stores starting in around August in response to its slumping sales in those stores, Bloomberg reported, a move that may spread to more stores next year.
Dick's last year announced it would ban sales of assault-style weapons after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting and revelations that its shooter, Nikolas Cruz, had purchased a gun from a Dick's store. The company also halted sales of high-capacity magazines and guns to anyone under 21 years old.
Hunting products started vanishing from 10 Dick's stores last fall as the retailer swapped those items for products such as kayaks and baseball gear. Stack said the stores saw higher sales, margins and foot traffic than when they had guns, according to Bloomberg.
Halting assault-style weapon sales put a dent in overall sales for Dick's, the company noted last fall, a dip furthered by a weaker gun market. On Tuesday, the Pittsburgh-area company said net income for the quarter fell to $102.6 million from $116 million in the year-earlier period, per MarketWatch.