By Joseph P. Tartaro | Executive Editor
A columnist for a Detroit newspaper recently noted that “About the only merchandise Dick’s Sporting Goods sells that you can’t also find on Amazon are guns. And yet the major retailer of athletic and outdoor gear is turning on that captive customer base, throwing its lot in with advocates for tighter gun control laws.”
That columnist is not the only one puzzled by Dick’s corporate decisions. It seemed so counterintuitive, but I was not surprised. In my most recent visits to any of the giant stores in the Buffalo area I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the displays for non-consumptive sports products and underwhelmed by the diminished space devoted to hunting, fishing and shooting products.
I was also turned off by the negative and couldn’t-care-less response from the mature male clerk to my inquiry about where to find the store’s C123 batteries for a number of flashlights.
Needless to say, like a lot of other people, I turned to Amazon.com for the batteries. And I have never been back to a Dick’s store. I got the impression then that Dick’s was expecting to make its business mark catering to soccer moms outfitting their children for team sports and golfers. And recent events tend to confirm my impressions.
The company was traumatized in February when it was learned that Nikolas Cruz, the teenaged Parkland, FL, high school shooter had purchased a shotgun at one of Dick’s Florida stores. Not the gun he used in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School mayhem; another one the crazy rich kind could easily afford.
Dick’s quickly yanked so-called assault weapons off the shelves of its 700 stores nationwide in a knee-jerk response to pressure from banks, other businesses and anti-gun groups—and maybe the soccer moms. Dick’s also stopped selling all guns to adults under age 21, announced that it would no longer sell full capacity magazines holding more than ten rounds, and that it would be destroying its existing inventory of so-called assault weapons rather than returning them to the original sources.
Dick’s CEO Edward W. Stack announced his new policies during an appearance on “Good Morning America,” as well as through a company statement that said “thoughts and prayers are not enough” in the wake of America’s latest mass shooting.
His decision drew praise from anti-gun commentators and politicians, but it seemed to confuse his potential customers.
Finally, Dick’s made it known that the chain had hired three Capitol Hill lobbyists—two Democrats and one Republican—to pressure Congress to pass more stringent regulations on guns.
That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) Board of Governors unanimously voted to expel Dick’s Sporting Goods from membership for “conduct detrimental to the best interests of the Foundation,” NSSF announced in its weekly Bullet Points newsletter.
Dick’s is the national retail chain that announced it would no longer sell semi-auto modern sporting rifles to anyone under age 21 in the aftermath of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, on Feb. 14. The store took considerable heat for the decision, which included a halt on sales of original capacity magazines, and then poured gas on that political fire when it announced it would destroy guns and magazines it had left in stock, according to The Hill.
The timing could be awkward for the sporting goods chain because it just announced that four new stores would be opening this month. Those stores will be in Aurora, CO, West Long Branch, NJ, Gurnee, IL, and McAllen, TX.
Here is the text of the NSSF announcement:
The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®), the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industries, Board of Governors today unanimously voted to expel Dick’s Sporting Goods from membership for conduct detrimental to the best interests of the Foundation.
“Dick’s Sporting Goods recently hired a Washington D.C.-based government affairs firm, for ‘[l]obbying related to gun control.’ Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Edward W. Stack announced earlier this year the Field and Stream stores in the retail chain would end sales of modern sporting rifles, voluntarily raise the age to 21 to purchase firearms in their stores and called for more restrictive legislation. Dick’s later announced they would destroy the remaining modern sporting rifle inventory. NSSF responded that business decisions should be individually made, but was nonetheless disappointed and the decision does not reflect the reality of the vast majority of law-abiding gun owners.”
Social media erupted when Dick’s made its initial announcement about raising the age of sale to 21 years in its stores. Many gun owners declared they would no longer spend money at any of the stores.
According to The Hill, “A spokesman for Dick’s declined to comment to Bloomberg for its report, and Glover Park didn’t respond to the outlet’s requests for comment.”
The political battle over gun rights versus gun control has been on the front burner since the Valentine’s Day attack that claimed 17 lives.
Aside from the dishonor of being expelled from the nation’s largest trade association for the firearms, ammunition and outdoor products, Dick’s was next blackballed by many of the companies it used to buy products from, including, so far, handgun and rifle manufacturer Springfield Armory, shotgun icon O.F. Mossberg and MKS Supply, the marketing arm for Hi Point Arms and Inland Manufacturing.
Dick’s CEO Edward Stack told ABC’s Good Morning America, “looking at those (Parkland) kids and those parents, it moved us all unimaginably … we said, ‘we need to do something.’ ”
What Stack is doing now goes well beyond selectively limiting gun sales. He may be putting a bullet into his struggling business. Dick’s reportedly has been sliding in sales for the past year; the stock price is down nearly 40 percent as competition from online retailers such as Amazon eats deeply into its sales. That’s a familiar story in the retail business.
But unlike other brick-and-mortar stores, Dick’s has an edge in that it offers a product not easily purchased over the internet: guns.
Pulling the so-called assault rifles left Dick’s with a solid selection of hunting rifles and shotguns, as well as handguns. But that may not be for long, thanks to its dive into anti-gun activism.
