Ed Stack, the chairman and CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods, said in a new interview that his company destroyed $5 million worth of semi-automatic rifles after removing them from store shelves last year.

Dick’s stopped selling AR-15s after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 but took it a step further after the 2018 Parkland high school shooting, raising the gun purchase age to 21 and banning the sale of high-capacity magazines and assault-style rifles. It was a highly controversial move that Mr. Stack said cost the company “pretty close” to $250 million.

“About a quarter of a billion,” Mr. Stack said when asked how much the company lost during a CBS interview aired Sunday.

He said the company turned $5 million worth of weapons pulled from store shelves into scrap metal.

“I said, ‘You know what? If we really think these things should be off the street, we need to destroy them,’ ” he said.

Despite the blow to business, Mr. Stack said he is weighing pulling all firearms from store shelves.

“We’ve got the whole category under strategic review to see what we’re going to do with this category,” he said.

“So many people say to me, you know, ‘If we do what you want to do, it’s not going to stop these mass shootings,’ ” he said. “And my response is, ‘You’re probably right, it won’t. But if we do these things and it saves one life, don’t you think it’s worth it?’ “

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