Dick’s Sporting Goods has thrown in the towel on gun and ammo sales at another 440 of its stores. Because, for Dick’s CEO Ed Stack, losing $250 million in sales from implementing anti-gun measures simply wasn’t woke enough.
That’s right: At last March’s stockholder’s meeting, Stack claimed his company had lost $150 million as a result of their new restrictive gun sales policies.
Later in October 2019, that number had risen to $250 million according to Stack.
The chain implemented a number of restrictive anti-gun measures after the Parkland school shooting, unilaterally enacted age discrimination policies, refusing to sell firearms or ammo to customers under 21 even where legal.
Dick’s ended sales of “high capacity” magazines and America’s favorite rifle, the AR-15, along with other modern sporting rifles. Instead of returning those guns and magazines to manufacturers, the chain made a show of destroying $5 million in inventory in order to burnish their social justice credentials.
As a cherry on top, the company also hired a Washington lobbyist to push for federal gun control laws.
They then filled lots of newly-emptied, valuable display space in a curious fashion.
In Ed Stack’s mind, though, destroying perfectly good guns and magazines while losing a quarter billion in sales still isn’t sufficiently woke. The chain is now removing entire hunting departments at 440 stores.
From CNN (autoplay video at link):
New York (CNN Business) Dick’s Sporting Goods will stop selling guns at 440 additional stores this year, escalating the company’s methodical elimination of firearms from its stores.
The move follows a series of decisions at Dick’s to scale back gun sales. A few days after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting in February 2018, the company announced it would stop selling semi-automatic weapons like the one used in the event.
A few months later, Dick’s pulled firearms and hunting accessories from 10 stores as a test. That went well: Overall sales increased at those stores. The company then pulled guns and ammunition from 125 additional stores in March 2019.
Now Dick’s plans to nearly quadruple the number of stores without guns, the company announced during its fourth-quarter earnings report Tuesday.
Ed Stack seems hellbent on dragging down the Dick’s Sporting Goods chain in the name of conspicuous social justice posturing. Unfortunately, his 30,000 employees don’t have his financial resources. They will be the ones to feel the brunt of any lost jobs, lost wages, and lost health insurance that result from his moves to alienate his customers.