Senior staff links their work at Dick’s to gun control advocacy, “Dick’s Sporting Goods Sales Hit by Tougher Stance on Guns,”

Dec 17, 2018 | Featured

While other outlets such as Walmart haven’t seen a slow down in gun sales, the same thing wasn’t true about Dick’s Sporting Goods after their decision to hire lobbyists for gun control. During the spring, this became public:

The sporting-goods chain is working with three lobbyists from the Glover Park Group to take on the topic, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing a disclosure form filed late last month.

The move comes after Dick’s announced following the mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school in February that it would stop selling assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.

The chain also said it would no longer sell guns to anyone under the age of 21 and later announced it would destroy some of the guns or accessories left in stock. . . .

Politicians such as Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) praised the decision.

Not surprisingly, many with Bloomberg’s gun control have made a point to do their shopping at Dick’s Sporting Goods. For example, Randee Steffen is one Mom’s Demand Action member who Tweeted out her plans. Despite those efforts, the Wall Street Journal had this story at the end of November:

Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. is paying a price for its decision earlier this year to stop selling guns to people under 21 as sales continued to sag in its latest quarter.

Sales at existing stores and websites fell 3.9% for the three-month period ended Nov. 3., driven down by weakness in the company’s hunting and electronics departments, executives said on a conference call with analysts on Wednesday. Those categories accounted for over half of the decline. Weak gun sales also hit other areas like outdoor equipment because fewer hunters are coming to stores, said Lee Belitsky, chief financial officer at Dick’s. It was the chain’s fifth consecutive quarter of sales declines. . . .

So how can you explain Dick’s Sporting Goods making decisions that not only hurt their stockholders, but don’t make people safer? One explanation is that some of the senior employees are gun control ideologues. Gina Pelusi, who has no problem identifying herself as the Senior Brand Analyst for Dick’s, has post after post just pushing more gun control. It is interesting that Dick’s doesn’t mind employees mixing identifying their employment with their gun control advocacy.

johnrlott

2 Comments

  1. MSG John Laigaie

    Dicks has the right to sell what it wants (except birthday and wedding cakes). I have the right to not give Dicks my money. I can get along without them, but they cannot get along without US.

  2. Henley

    You seem to be pushing a political agenda rather than following research wherever it may lead. And Gina’s mother was murdered, so I find it very irresponsible, as well as cruel, to call attention to her in this way, knowing that the gun rights extremists will no doubt harass her.

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