Walmart to raise age limit on gun purchases

Walmart is set to raise the minimum age for gun purchases and ammunition, according to a statement from the company.

The nation’s largest retailer announced Wednesday it will hike the minimum age for firearms purchases to 21 years old.

“We take seriously our obligation to be a responsible seller of firearms and go beyond Federal law by requiring customers to pass a background check before purchasing any firearm,” the company said in the statement. “The law would allow the sale of a firearm if no response to a background check request has been received within three business days, but our policy prohibits the sale until an approval is given.”

{mosads}Walmart also announced it would remove items from its website “resembling assault-style rifles, including nonlethal airsoft guns and toys.”

“Our heritage as a company has always been in serving sportsmen and hunters, and we will continue to do so in a responsible way,” the company said.

The move comes after Dick’s Sporting Goods announced it would stop selling assault-style rifles and stop gun sales to those under the age of 21.

During an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Dick’s CEO Ed Stack said he was “disturbed and saddened” by the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

“Based on what’s happened, and looking at those kids and those parents, it moved us all unimaginably and to think about the loss and the grief that those kids and those parents had, we said, we need to do something,” he added.

Stack said the store would not reverse its decision and called on Congress to take action on gun control “with the intent of really finding a solution to this problem.”

The move by the two retailers comes amid heightened calls for gun control in the weeks following the deadly Florida school shooting that left 17 people dead and 14 people injured.

President Trump on Wednesday urged Congress to consider increasing the minimum age for buying rifles, from 18 to 21.

“This is not a popular thing to say in terms of the NRA, but I’m going to have to say it. … I think it’s something you have to think about,” Trump told a bipartisan group of lawmakers during a White House meeting. 

The suspected shooter, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, allegedly used an AR-15 rifle during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Federal law enforcement officials have said the gun was purchased legally.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has opposed increasing the minimum age for gun purchases, and some Republican lawmakers have also opposed the idea.

In a meeting with Trump this weekend, the NRA reportedly pressed Trump not to raise the legal age for purchasing guns.