PA Bill Number: HB1472
Title: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contributions ...
Description: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contrib ...
Last Action: Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT
Last Action Date: Apr 22, 2024
Gun Sales So Low At Dick's They May Yank All Hunting Gear :: 11/30/2018
Dick’s Sporting Goods took a firm, anti-gun stance. Oh, it’ll still sell guns, but it’ll only sell “approved” guns, the kind that anti-gunners generally pretend are fine. At least until they get around to demanding those be banned too.
When Dick’s made its announcement that it would not sell AR-15s at any of its stores going forward and that it would discriminate against legal adults looking to buy long guns, gun rights advocates called for a boycott. It was answered. So much so that the company has been reeling from the lost revenues.
It’s now to the point that the company is considering cutting out all of its hunting merchandise.
The CEO for the sporting goods retailer said Thursday that the company was doing a trial run in 10 locations, pulling all hunting merchandise and replacing it with other items.
“Though it’s too early to discuss performance, we’re optimistic these changes will better serve the athletes in these communities,” Dick’s CEO Edward Stack said in a conference call, as reported by JSOnline.
The reason for the new approach may be because sales in that department have plummeted across all of Dick’s 732 stores.
“Specific to hunt, in addition to the strategic decisions made regarding firearms earlier this year, sales continued to be negatively impacted by double-digit declines in hunt and electronics,” said Lee Belitsky, chief financial officer.
By “strategic decisions” Belitsky is referring to the company’s announcement in the wake of the February massacre in Parkland, Florida that it would no longer sell guns to adults under the age of 21 and that it would not only stop selling but destroy its existing inventory of modern sporting rifles at its 35 Field & Stream locations.
Well, that’s got to sting.
Frankly, I just want to sit here and giggle like a school girl over this crap. It couldn’t happen to a nicer company and all that.
The truth is, Dick’s decided to virtue signal in the wake of Parkland, probably convinced that it would improve the bottom line. For a short while, it might have as anti-gunners decided to patronize Dick’s in a show of solidarity. The problem is that anti-gunners made a few purchases and then went back to their old habits while gun folks have long memories. Hell, some people still won’t buy Smith & Wesson because of the deal they signed with HUD during the 1990s, which was several owners ago.
In other words, we don’t forget. We can forgive, but we don’t forget.
More importantly, we don’t forgive without a damn good reason, and Dick’s isn’t doing that. It hasn’t given us one.
So now Dick’s is going to remove all its hunting gear, figuring that hunters aren’t coming in. That’s probably a correct assumption. However, I’m not so sure that’s going to make a difference. After all, a lot of people who support the Second Amendment participate in tons of sports besides hunting.
They’re not shopping at Dick’s either.
It’s only a matter of time before the company must clean house or shut down. In fact, it might be interesting if pro-gunners banded together to buy the company out and make the house cleaning happen a bit sooner.
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/
https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2018/11/30/gun-sales-low-dicks-may-yank-hunting-gear/
