22 NEWSWEEK.COM DECEMBER 13, 2019
that classes resumed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
I told him how saddened we’d been by the attack, that we’d felt
compelled to take action in response. We discussed the fact that the
shooter had bought a shotgun from us even though he hadn’t used
it in the attack. That had been part of our impetus for taking the
assault-style rifles off the shelves, I explained: “The systems that are
in place across the board just aren’t effective enough to keep us from
selling someone like that a gun.”
Stephanopoulos asked me, “Any regrets at all about not taking
a move like this sooner? After Newtown, after Sandy Hook, you
announced a temporary suspension of assault weapons sales but
then came back to selling.”
I answered, “We did. We said we were going to temporarily take
them out of the Dick’s stores, the Dick’s Sporting Goods stores.We never put them back in the Dick’s stores. And then, in 2013, we
developed a chain, Field & Stream, which was a full-on hunting
and outdoors store. And we put them in those stores. But based on
what’s happened, and looking at those kids, and those parents, it
moved us all unimaginably.” I was fighting, here, to keep my voice
from cracking. “And to think about the loss and the grief that those
kids and those parents had, we said we need to do something, and
we’re taking these guns out of all of our stores, permanently.”
“So yeah, no chance you’re going to reverse this?” Stephanopou-
los asked then, and my reply was, “Never.”
“Are you ready for the backlash?” he asked.
“We are,” I told him. “We know that this isn’t going to make
everyone happy.”
Stephanopoulos changed tacks. “You want Congress to act as well.”