Dick's Learns Painful Lesson After Attacking the 2nd Amendment
After the shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school in February, progressives launched an anti-gun pressure campaign against various corporations to push them to implement gun control demands in lieu of legislative action.
One demand was that retail outlets that sell firearms — especially “evil assault weapons” like the incredibly common semi-automatic AR-15 rifles — not sell guns or ammunition to anyone under the age of 21. Dick’s Sporting Goods and their affiliated Field & Stream locations quickly acquiesced to this demand.
Dick’s announced that so-called “assault weapons” would no longer be sold in any of their Field & Stream stores and introduced a new company-wide policy that prohibits the sale of all firearms to legal adults between the ages of 18-20.
But according to a report from Fortune, that move appears to have majorly backfired, as the decision to limit the sale of firearms has led to a significant decrease in sales across the board.
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. Despite the bad news, the company remained optimistic and planned to open several new stores and posted bold predictions for increased profit and sales going forward.
Of course, Fortune and others largely dismissed the effect the new anti-gun policies had on the slumping sales numbers and pointed to other problems Dick’s has already been facing, such as increased competition and high prices on overstocked items, according to National Review.
Dick’s anti-gun stance has been largely attributed to the revelation that the Parkland shooter had legally purchased one of his weapons — not the one used in the massacre — at a Dick’s store, a fact which prompted the retail outlet to implement their ban on so-called “assault weapons” and “high capacity magazines.”
“Thoughts and prayers are not enough,” proclaimed the company in a statement announcing the new policies. “We support and respect the Second Amendment, and we recognize and appreciate that the vast majority of gun owners in this country are responsible, law-abiding citizens. But we have to help solve the problem that’s in front of us.”
Obviously that message didn’t comport with what they proceeded to do, and it would seem that plenty of customers took note of the double-speak and took their business elsewhere.
“There’s going to be some pushback and we expected that,” stated CEO Edward Stack to Wall Street analysts, according to CNN. “There are going to be the people who don’t shop us anymore for anything.”
Stack further predicted that the move was “not going to be positive from a traffic standpoint and a sales standpoint.” Boy, did that prediction turn out to be correct.
This is what happens when virtue-signaling corporations wade into the culture wars and pick one side over the other … they tend to get burned by those they have aligned against.
If Dick’s had gone against the liberals demanding they infringe upon the rights of law-abiding citizens and stood strong, they quite likely would have seen an increase in sales numbers as they would have been rewarded for their stance by the legion of gun owners and purchasers in heartland America. Even if they had simply remained silent and not picked a side at all, their numbers likely would have remained steady.
Instead, they choose a side, and they chose poorly. Now they must suffer the financial consequences they brought upon themselves.
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