Local, national and world news stories of interest.
 #110931  by CorBon
 
Local sellers won't follow Dick's Sporting Goods in 'assault rifle' ban

https://www.delawareonline.com/story/ne ... 381140002/

Adam Duvernay, The News JournalPublished 2:38 p.m. ET Feb. 28, 2018


While Dick's Sporting Goods announced Wednesday it will no longer sell "assault-style rifles," those rifles are flying out of locally owned gun shops that say they will keep selling them.

Two Delaware firearms sellers say Dick's choice to discontinue the sale of certain rifles is a decision their own livelihoods and beliefs about civil liberties won't allow them to make.

Dick's decision was a reaction to the Feb. 15 Parkland, Florida, school shooting that left 17 dead. The chain will no longer will sell "assault-style rifles" such as the AR-15 or high-capacity magazines, the company said Wednesday. It also increased the age requirement for all firearms purchases to 21.

Dick's is the latest corporation to distance themselves from a style of firearm commonly used in American massacres and from the nation's powerful gun lobby.

Delta and United airlines are discontinuing discounts for National Rifle Association members, and First National Bank of Omaha, the nation’s largest privately owned bank, said they would no longer handle the NRA credit cards.

But in corner gun stores, such as Delmarva Shooting Supply in Seaford, stepping away from weapons like the AR-15 would mean the end of business.

Weapons that might fall under a ban — like the one Gov. John Carney called for recently — make up about 95 percent of owner Raymond Daigle's inventory, he said.

"Any type of gun control in the short term will boost my business. But in the long term it's not good," he said. "If they enact an assault weapons ban — that was already proven not to work — it will hurt our industry."

It comes down, he said, to the political climate in which Dick's must operate.

"They've got shareholders to answer to. They have a very diverse set of clients. I don't have have anti-gun people walking into my shop," Daigle said. "If they don't sell them, I sell more. I lose a lot of customers to Dick's Sporting Goods."

Dick's also in 2012 it would ban from their shelves AR-15s and comparable weapons after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, which left 28 people dead. But the guns reappeared months later in Field and Stream stores, the company's outdoor and hunting chain.

Dick's CEO say this time will be different.

“But it came to us that we could have been a part of this story,’’ Edward Stack told the New York Times Tuesday. “We said, ‘We don’t want to be a part of this any longer.’”

The gun control debate is freshly sparked after each American massacre, but this time feels different to Beth Parsons, owner of Shooter's Choice in Dover.

She estimates the controversial weapons make up 15 percent of her stock at most, but fears coming changes she believes would punish her clientele and limit her inventory. Her clients do, too. In the last week, she's sold seven of the eight AR-15s she had in stock.

"If they do end up banning the so-called assault rifles, what's next?" She asks. "Will I be able to sell guns in the future? Once they ban one kind of gun, the next are sure to follow."

The inventory change at Dick's is a political move, she said.

"I don't even know how to explain it because I don't understand it," Parsons said. "I can't be political. If I choose one customer over another, I'm losing business."

Daigle and Parsons support improving the firearms purchase background check system. Both blame the gunmen, not the guns, in acts of mass violence.

Neither thinks those pushing for greater gun control — school age children, politicians and journalists — understand firearms well enough to be in the driver's seat.

"This is the only crime in America an inanimate object gets blamed for," Daigle said. "Drunk drivers, we prosecute them. We don't take away people's cars."

Contact Adam Duvernay at aduvernay@delawareonline.com or (302) 319-1855 or @duvINdelaware.
 #110938  by Owen
 
Yep, Vipers's place was hoppin' when I stopped by Tuesday.

Why is it I always run in to people I know there? LOL :lol: