Name:   phil - Subject:   Dicks Date:   3/1/2018 9:54:31 AM (updated 3/1/2018 9:54:47 AM)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dick-s-sporting-goods-took-stand-against-guns-will-it-n852061

Dick's Sporting Goods' announcement Wednesday that it would stop selling military-style rifles like the AR-15 was instantly powerful, dominating the news cycle while adding fuel to a gun control debate that has raged since the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

But in practical terms, the move may not have much impact.

A small fraction - about 12 percent - of the hundreds of thousands of AR-style rifles sold each year in America are purchased at big-box merchandisers like Dick's, according to Southwick Associates, a market research firm that works for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group.

"The actual sales impact will be negligible," said Rommel Dionisio

After the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the company halted sales of military-style rifles like the AR-15, which, along with AK-47s, are categorized by the gun industry as "modern sporting rifles."

That move did nothing to stop AR-15 sales, which spiked that year amid calls for stricter gun laws.

A few months later, in the summer of 2013, Dick's opened the first of its line of specialty Field and Stream stores, geared toward hunting and fishing. Those stores began selling AR-style weapons.