Teaching Activities for: 'Walmart and Dick's Raise Minimum Age for Gun Buyers to 21'

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Before reading the article:

Take a look at the New York Times graphic below, showing a high-powered military M16 rifle at the top, and high-powered rifles below it that are for sale in gun stores throughout the United States.

Look at the rifles below the M16. Notice that each weapon has the name of a city where a mass shooting took place involving that type of weapon.

What do you notice about the guns, and what is your reaction to seeing the military weapon next to the weapons used in the mass shootings? Why did you answer the way you did?

Now, read the article “Walmart and Dick’s Raise Minimum Age for Gun Buyers to 21” and answer the following questions:

1. What did Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods stores do on Feb. 28, and why did they do it, according to the article?

2. What are the new age minimums required for gun sales at each store? What other limits are the stores putting on guns, toy guns and high-capacity magazines they sell?

3. What other companies moved last week to dissociate themselves from the National Rifle Association?

4. What did representatives at each company say about directly linking their actions to the Parkland, Fla., school shooting?

5. What has been the response on social media to the announcements?

6. What are the details about Dick’s removal of assault-style rifles from its main stores in 2012? What is different about Dick’s actions this time?

7. What did Edward Stack, the 63-year-old chief executive whose father founded Dick’s in 1948, say about his decision to remove assault-style and other semiautomatic rifles in its stores? What did Dick’s other top executives and directors have to say about the decision?

8. What is Dick’s doing to move the conversation beyond social media into the political realm, and why?

Finally, tell us more about what you think:

The article reports that under federal law, a person must be at least 21 to buy a handgun, but that 18-year-olds can legally buy semiautomatic rifles and other firearms.

Do you think the current law is a good one? Do you think it should be changed, and if so, how?

What do you think about Dick’s and Walmart’s decisions, and why do you think the way you do?

Read through some of the thousands of Readers’ Picks comments in the article to see what others think, and find a few that make sense to you. What do those comments say, and why did you select them?

See related coverage in The Times here: “Readers React to Dick’s Sporting Goods’ Decision on Assault-Style Rifles,” and “With AR-15s, Mass Shooters Attack With the Rifle Firepower Typically Used by Infantry Troops.”

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