In the wake of the Stoneman Douglas Valentine’s Day massacre, Dick’s Sporting Goods went public in announcing that they’d stop selling assault rifles in their stores. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure anyone was aware you could purchase an assault rifle at Dick’s Sporting Goods in the first place.
The outlet also announced that they’d be raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm from one of their stores to 21, and would stop selling high capacity magazines.
It was all a PR move, because of reports that the perpetrator of the Stoneman Douglas massacre had purchased a shotgun at a Dick’s in November of 2017. It wasn’t used in the massacre, but it still tied their brand’s name to a mass murderer.
When nobody knows your store sells firearms, and the only notable person who did purchase one is Nickolas Cruz, that certainly merits some damage control. Unfortunately for the firm, this move probably cost them more business than if they had just done nothing.
According to the Conservative Tribune:
The retail outlet’s stock value plummeted to its lowest point in four months after their latest quarterly report revealed that both profits and sales had fallen short of expectations.
Shares of stock in Dick’s, which had initially risen as much as 13 percent this year, dropped by 7.3 percent in recent post-report trading. That came on the heels of news that fourth quarter profit per share and total shares had missed their projections.
It was also revealed that same-store sales had declined far more than predicted.
In response to criticism of their company policy, Dick’s CEO Edward V. Stack published an op-ed in the Washington Post this week to explain that he’s not anti-Second Amendment, but is pro-gun control.
“I understand why, for many, the right to bear arms is as American as baseball and apple pie,” he wrote. “But I also agree with what Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his majority opinion in 2008’s landmark Heller case: ‘Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.’”
“It is ‘not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose,’” Stack wrote, stating that it’s “clear we have a problem with the gun laws in this country.”
The gun control measures proposed in the op-ed are largely parallel to those he implemented in his own stores; banning assault weapons, high capacity magazines, raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm, and expanding background checks.
Have you stopped shopping at Dick’s? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!