Online retailer Cheaper Than Dirt!, one of the world’s largest sporting goods stores and a top online gun distributor, has suspended sales of firearms as of Tuesday.

According to an alert posted on its Facebook and Twitter accounts, the “temporary” suspension is effective immediately as the company reviews its policies and promotions related to online gun sales.

Cheaper Than Dirt! has temporarily suspended online sales of firearms. As a long time supporter of the Second Amendment, Cheaper Than Dirt! will continue to promote the safe and responsible use of firearms by law abiding customers. During this temporary suspension, we will review our policies and promotions.

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings gun control advocates and politicians on both sides of the aisle have called for bans on the sale, transfer, importation and possession of semi-automatic rifles. One of the most outspoken anti-gun legislation supporters, Mayor Bloomberg of New York, pleaded with President Obama to take executive action that would essentially nullify the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Retailers like Cheaper Than Dirt! are not alone. Dick’s Sporting Goods, another large distributor of firearms, has also taken action by suspending the sale of certain rifles and removing public display cases for firearms. “During this time of national mourning we have removed all guns from sale and from display in our store nearest to Newtown and suspended the sale of modern sporting rifles in all of our stores chainwide,” says a press release on the company’s corporate website. Celebrus Capital management, an investment firm with a stake in firearms maker Freedom Group, which manufactured one of the guns used in the Newtown shooting, said it would sell its ownership in the company.

While thousands have signed an online petitition calling for new anti-gun laws, so too are thousands of Americans taking up arms, so to speak. Within minutes of the new CheaperThanDirt! policies being put into place, hundreds of comments criticizing the company’s move began flowing on social networks:

With free market retailers already bowing to the pressure of anti-gun groups, it shouldn’t be too difficult for legislators to start taking aim at the Second Amendment through guns bans, as well as banning the online sale of ammunition.

The event in Newtown, CT was tragic to be sure.

Equally as tragic, however, is that millions of Americans may soon lose their right to defend their homes and their persons as a result of half-baked, emotionally driven policies and laws.

How many innocents will die once Americans are stripped of their only defense against criminals who will stop at nothing to use deadly weapons to get their way?

The solution is not to try and ban or collect the some 300 million weapons in circulation in the United States; it’s to allow Americans to carry these weapons freely, openly and in a responsible manner.

It’s that simple.