A corporation with a conscience - itâs about time.
Force 5 Mega Storm of hysterical hyperventilating outrage from the NRA in ⌠5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1
Itâs a start.
Whoâs next.
Kudos. Good bye Cabelaâs hello Dickâs.
Good on Mr. Stack, but Dickâs is a public company. Anybody read anything about whether Stack has the backing of the board of directors? The stock priced closed at $31.80 last night. I think I might keep an eye on it to see if a reversal is forthcoming.
Yes. Now they only sell assault weapons to the Paddocks and Lanzas of the world.
ETA: Lanza was only 20, so my bad on that. However, his mom owned the gun he used, so Dickâs policy wouldnât have made any difference there.
The stockholders will of course gripe about it, but this is a good move.
Not hardly. As @jtx pointed out earlier:
They did the same thing after Sandy Hook. They just transferred their sales to Field and Stream. We will see how long it lasts this time.
Lo and behold, âField & Stream is a retailer of hunting, fishing, camping, and related outdoor recreation merchandise that is a subsidiary of Dickâs Sporting Goods.â Imagine that!
Stack said Dickâs is prepared for any potential backlash, but will not change its policies on gun sales.
âŚ
No backlash from me.
Oh, please. No public corporation has a conscience. Anytime you see a public corporation doing the right thing without being forced to do so by the government, it is a business decision made for business reasons, no matter how hard the executives and board members are patting themselves on the back.
They saw a looming PR disaster because theyâd sold a gun to the killer, stuck their finger in the air and realized that this time, the more powerful winds of backlash were going to come from the people who werenât NRA gun cult deatheaters.
If theyâd had a âconscience,â they would have stopped selling the goddamn things on December 15, 2012, when 20 first graders were torn to pieces by an M-16 clone, along with six educators who died futilely trying to shield the murdered first graders with their own bodies. If theyâd had a conscience, they would have said âwe are in the business of selling sporting goods. So just what fucking âsportâ are these barely civilianized military weapons weâre selling for? Or, for that matter, what âsportâ are handguns used for?â
Every company that kept selling these goddamn things after the massacres of the Obama era for fear of NRA cultist blowback, particularly after Sandy Hook, gets no credit for doing this now in my book. Glad theyâre doing it, but no gold stars. Because twenty little kids, most with presents wrapped and under the tree that their parents had to deal with after burying their children, wasnât enough. Because watching the parents and relatives of those children, and the spouses and children of the educators, harassed and stalked and threatened and slandered by the death cultists wasnât enough.
It only became enough when a bunch of much older, more articulate, heroic kids pulled out their phones while magazines were still being emptied into their classmates and formed a plan by SMS to give meaning to their survival, if they were lucky enough to survive. They get the credit. Not the companies who suddenly realize this time their bottom line is taking a hit no matter what and they need to make an irrevocable decision right now about which hit will be bigger.
If the company wanted even partial credit from me, theyâd pull the handguns too and send the lot to the nearest scrap yard to be fed into the maws of those machines that can shred whole cars into tiny bits. But, of course, they wonât. Theyâll return the guns to the manufacturers, the manufacturers will have to take them back per the big box retailerâs standard master vendor agreement, and the manufacturers will then feed them right back into the market to meet the spike in demand all this talk of finally banning the goddamn things again will create.
Edit:
And, just to drive home that point, turns out that, after Sandy Hook, Dickâs âsuspendedâ sales of assault rifles but had them back in the killing implement section in less than eight months. Because, as you might recall, by then, Boss LaPierre had squelched any talk of limitations even while pumping up assault rifle and high capacity magazine sales with âOMFG! OBAMA GONNA TAKE YER GUNZ!â hysteria to their highest level yet.
Spot one, Steve. Like x1 Million.
I believe this is the machine of which you speak.
Amen. These are the heroes. They are warriors, these kids. And they are making progress across the battlefield. And rallying the troops while they go. And their effect will be wider than just progress with gun control. They could be the impetus behind a wave of voters that will easily do away with all the assholes holding office right now.
Not to mention, Dickâs new policy wouldnât have prevented Sandy Hook since Lanzaâs mom bought the gun he used.
Theyâre actually pulling the assault rifles off the shelves this time. The 21 will apply to the âsportingâ weapons theyâll continue to sell. You know, the pistol grip pump shotguns and the Glocks. Except, possibly at their Field and Stream subs where, yeah, their inventory of assult rifles will likely go.
Yes, itâs a startâŚ
âŚto the politicization of retail economics in this country.
Yes, i know there have been boycotts of businesses in the past, but this pertains to the beloved and cherished, more than sacred 2nd Amendment, which was written by God to show Americanâs (his chosen people) the light to the Promised Land. This action by Dickâs Sporting Goods is an affront to the sacred values of American Superiority over all nations.
The 50-year anniversary of 1968 is shaping up to be a doozy.
If the board of dicksâŚerâŚdirectors had a conscience, they would stop selling all semiautomatic firearms. The company can still serve the majority of hunters and sharpshooters with revolver handguns and bolt, lever and pump action long guns. The NRA gun freaks would call for a boycott, but the impact on bottom line is likely to be both small and of short half-life.
Yes, but itâs movement and pressure. It has to start somewhere.
Thank you, Steve.
David Cay Johnstonâs book Free Lunch talks about how stores like Dickâs receive tax exemptions from many states. Maybe someone like the Georgia GOP rep carrying NRA water will threaten their tax exemptions.