We were moved ‘unimaginably’ by Florida school shooting

Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Guns sit on display at a Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. store in Paramus, New Jersey.

Dick’s Sporting Goods Chairman and CEO Ed Stack said Wednesday his decision to stop selling assault-style rifles was motivated by the deadly Valentine’s Day Florida school shooting.

“Based on what’s happened, and looking at those kids and those parents, it moved us all unimaginably. To think about the loss and the grief that those kids and those parents had, we said, ‘We need to do something.’ We’re taking these guns out of all our stores, permanently,” Stack said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Dick’s also announced on Wednesday it’s dropping high-capacity magazines and won’t sell any gun to anyone under age 21, regardless of local laws.

“We hope that Congress will come together,” Stack said. “And this is a complex issue. It’s not just about guns. It’s about mental health reform. It’s around background checks. And we hope they come together with the intent of really finding a solution, as opposed to knowing they are never going to do anything, just speak to their base.”

President Donald Trump is set to host a meeting of bipartisan lawmakers at the White House on Wednesday to talk about gun background checks.

Since the massacre, Trump has vowed to take action to reduce access to guns and improve school safety. Trump has supported possible changes, including boosting the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, raising the age to buy assault-style rifles to 21, banning “bump stocks” that effectively make semi-automatic rifles fire like a machine gun and arming some “gun adept” teachers.

Classes were set resume on Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland for the first since a gunman killed 17 people on Feb. 14.

— CNBC’s Jacob Pramuk contributed to this report.