Montini: Will Dick's Sporting Goods run for president ... please?

EJ Montini: Why did it take the president of a sporting goods company and not the president of the United States to offer common sense gun regulation?

EJ Montini
The Republic | azcentral.com
On Wednesday, DIck's Sporting Goods CEO  Ed Stack announced the retail chain would no longer be selling sporting rifles.

Why did it take the president of a sporting goods company – rather than the President of the United States – to so plainly and eloquently articulate the gun violence problem and present some simple, common sense solutions?

Don’t answer that.

The answer, we all know, has everything to do with politics and money and nothing to do with protecting Americans, including our children.

Putting people over profit

Still, the statement released by Edward W. Stack, Chairman & CEO of DICK’S Sporting Goods is out there, now, and the regulations he suggests should become law.

They won’t.

But they should.

First, DICK’S announced that it would no longer sell firearms to anyone under 21; will no longer sell assault-style rifles or high capacity magazines to anyone, and won’t ever peddle bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic weapons to fire like automatics.

Putting the citizen in 'corporate citizen'

This, alone, illustrated the definition of a good corporate citizen. DICK'S is a business that understands that some things are more important and profit. There’s money to be made on all of these products. The people at DICK’S don’t feel the potential cost is worth the financial gain.

Good for them.

Even better, the company offers six suggested gun regulations they “implore our elected officials to enact.”

That would be a great thing.

At the very least, these common sense suggestions – most of which a majority of Americans already support – deserve to be heard and voted on by Congress.

They are:

Six simple suggestions

Ban assault-style firearms.

Raise the minimum age to purchase firearms to 21.

Ban high capacity magazines and bump stocks.

Require universal background checks that include relevant mental health information and previous interactions with the law.

Ensure a complete universal database of those banned from buying firearms.

Close the private sale and gun show loophole that waives the necessity of background checks.

Not one of these regulations would intrude upon the Second Amendment right of an American to own a firearm. They might, however, save lives.

And as the statement from DICK’S concludes, “If common sense reform is enacted and even one life is saved, it will have been worth it.”

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