Florida Shooting: Walmart and Dick's Sporting Goods restrict gun sales

Walmart and Dick's Sporting Goods have announced new restrictions on gun sales following the February 14 shooting at a Florida school that left 17 people dead.

Dick's Sporting Goods, which is one of the biggest retailers in the country with more than 600 shops, said it was stopping the sales of assault-style rifles, and Walmart said it was raising the minimum age for anyone buying guns or ammunition to 21 years.

"We take seriously our obligation to be a responsible seller of firearms," Walmart said in a statement.

In the wake of the Florida school shooting, US politicians have come under tremendous pressure to enforce stricter gun laws and to cut off ties with the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA).

In a bid prevent instances of gun violence in classrooms, US President Donald Trump had proposed training school teachers to handle guns. However, the Quinnipiac University Poll released on Wednesday revealed that a clear majority of Florida voters opposed arming teachers of school officials. They also favoured a nationwide ban on assault weapons.

“Floridians are strongly united that more needs to be done to rein in guns, especially the type of gun used this month to massacre 17 people in Parkland,” Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a statement. “These numbers show remarkable agreement across the electorate, the kind not seen very often these days.”

Just days after Trump announced his plans to arm teachers with guns, a teacher at Dalton High School barricaded himself in a classroom and fired a gun. No one was hurt in the incident.

It wasn't immediately clear what led to the shooting or why the teacher, 53-year-old Jesse Randal Davidson, had the gun.

Chondi Chastain, a student at the school, took to Twitter shortly after the incident to point out the flaw in Trump's proposal.

"My favorite teacher at Dalton high school just blockaded his door and proceeded to shoot. We had to run out the back of the school in the rain. Students were being trampled and screaming. I dare you to tell me arming teachers will make us safe," she tweeted in a post that was retweeted 15,000 times within hours.