New numbers are out which send a pretty important message from Dick’s Sporting Goods to Americans… and also to law enforcement agencies.
According to CEO Ed Stack in an October 6 appearance on CBS News, the company destroyed $5 million worth of “assault-style rifles”. It was a move that was a direct attack on the Second Amendment, with stack saying the purpose was to keep them out of private hands.
True – thanks to capitalism, this company has the right to make whatever statement they want about the Second Amendment. But if you really cared about the safety and security of Americans, why not at least donate those guns to underfunded police departments? Why not share them with officers in cities like Chicago, where well over 2,000 people have been shot this year – mostly by criminals with illegally obtained weapons?
Dick’s is starting to feel the pain. Stack said their strict gun control stance has resulted in “a quarter of a billion [dollars]” in loss.
Yet he’s doubled down, saying that not only does he not regret it… but he’s considering taking the company even further down the gun control path.
Right now, 100 Dick’s stores no longer sell guns of any kind – a policy they’re thinking about expanding to all Dick’s.
When it comes to the loss Dick’s is suffering, I’m happy to say “I told you so”. It was a prediction I made on Fox Business in 2018 about what would happen when they decided to be social justice warriors.
The original announcement was made on April 17, 2018, that Dick’s was going to destroy its inventory rather than send it back to manufacturers. A spokesman from Dick’s was quoted:
“We are in the process of destroying all firearms and accessories that are no longer for sale as a result of our February 28th policy change. We are destroying the firearms in accordance with federal guidelines and regulations.”
At the same time, they announced that they will completely remove firearms and other hunting products from the shelves of 125 of their stores across the United States, reported USA Today.
The announcement cames amid a large decline in sales and foot traffic over the last year, since around the time the company announced that they would no longer sell “assault-style” weapons. The original announcement caused a major backlash for the sporting goods store, with gun owners making it clear they would no longer shop there.
BREAKING: Dick's Sporting Goods, the nation's largest sporting goods retailer, will stop selling assault-style weapons like the one used in the Florida high school shooting. The company says it will also raise the minimum age for all gun sales to 21. https://t.co/NGffuGea9U pic.twitter.com/BRPRWxFeFy
— CNN (@CNN) February 28, 2018
Dick’s began testing out replacing the merchandise last fall with batting cages, ski apparel, and other sporting gear in 10 of their stores and based on the results seen, they will expand accordingly.
Chief Executive Officer Edward Stack, a long time gun owner himself, began pulling back on firearms in 2012 after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. This shooting led to his decision to remove AR-15 style and other semi-automatic rifles from all stores operating under the Dick’s logo.
Additional restrictions were implemented on the company’s Field & Stream stores after Mr. Stack discovered that Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland School Shooter who killed 17 people in February of 2018, had once purchased a gun from a Dick’s Sporting Goods Store.
Despite that firearm not being linked to the Parkland School Shooting, it affected him enough that he decided to remove firearm accessibility from his stores.
In the last year, both chains also stopped selling guns and ammunition to customers younger than 21.
While the Sandy Hook Shooting was the event that led Mr. Stack to begin implementing these changes in his stores, it was in 2016 that he made political motives clear when his sister Karen Meyer was running for Congress in the 22nd Congressional District as a Democrat. Mr. Stack, a lifetime gun owner himself and major Republican donor, did a complete 180 in 2016 when he aligned himself with outspoken gun control activists and even made a big contribution to a super PAC supporting Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats back in 2016.
He is now one of the most well known names related to the issue of the gun debate, sharing the stage with other CEOs like Laurence D. Fink of BlackRock, Mark Bertolini, a former CEO of Aetna and other strongly opinionated business leaders who have invested interest in the subject.
Regardless, his opinions have impacted the sales of Dick’s Sporting Goods which dropped by 3.1 percent from February 2018- February 2019 compared to the same time period the year previous. Additionally, sales from the 2018 holiday season were down 2.2 percent compared to the year prior. Net income for the quarter fell to $102.6 million, or $1.07 a share, from $116 million, or $1.11 a share in the year-earlier period.
Mr. Stack admits the decline is due to both the new policies relating to firearms, as well as the rising competition from Amazon.
The results of social justice warrior stores also hit another company, as evidenced in a report we shared in April.
Remember the “#MeToo” themed ad from Gillett that chastised unshaven men? Looks like it backfired.
Gillette’s parent company, Proctor & Gamble, said in April it would reduce the price of some of its shave products by up to 20%. They’re citing “increasingly stiff competition”.
Other products’ by the company won’t have a price change.
The news came from P&G CFO Jon Moeller in a conference presentation to financial analysts. He said there’s a gap in prices between P&G’s higher-end razors and lower-end razors that will be filled by this reduction in price.
“We’ll soon be making pricing interventions to better position our brands at all levels of the pricing ladder,” Moeller said. “We are making smart adjustments across the line-up to restore a historical model and proven strategy.”
In North America, Gillette once claimed a 71% market share… but it’s down to 59%, according to Fortune. Startups like Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club are leapfrogging Gillette in the online razor market.
Shortly after Gillette’s ad launched that attacked unshaven men, a veteran-turned-cop sent us his thoughts on it. It’s almost like he could see the future. Here were his words:
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Another day, another brand that just sold itself out to the pussification of America.
- Read: Beards?
In case you missed it, Gillette has launched a new digital ad campaign aimed at men letting us know that we are all doers of evil.
It’s called “We Believe” and it starts out with news about the current #MeToo movement, bullying and “toxic masculinity”. From there, a narrator talks about the fact that “boys will be boys” and then asks: “Is this the best a man can get? Is it? We can’t hide from it. It has been going on far too long. We can’t laugh it off, making the same old excuses.”
Shocker. A company that’s failing to sell enough razors is making a desperate move in hopes that women will start buying their brand for their men.
Well, Gillette, I’m here to tell you what a real man is.
I first grew my beard when I was in the Sandbox. I can’t tell you who I was with over there, because technically the government still owns that part of my life.
I was the guy that assholes feared. You know why they feared me? Because I hunted down bad guys. And I killed them. My beard has been covered with the blood of terrorists more times than I can count.
My beard has also been covered with the blood of my brothers. The day the IED when off and I was one of only a handful of guys that made it out with all of our limbs.
The day a sniper took out the man who stood next to me on the best day of my life, my wedding day… and then stood in front of me when he took a bullet so I could one day go back to my bride.
That beard was tugged on by the tiny hands of our babies. The pain was real and it was a desperately needed moment to pull me out of the warzone back into the moments with my family. I can still feel the tugs reminding me that I was alive and there was a reason for that.
I thought I’d have to shave my beard to go into law enforcement back home. I didn’t. Apparently my track record of destroying evil was enough, and apparently it made me fit right in with more evil. That beard was what helped me to assimilate quickly deep undercover. It kept me alive. It helped really bad guys get not alive. And that helped keep good people alive.
My beard has been filled with the tears of women weeping over dead husbands and dead children. My beard has been played with when I filled in for Santa when he was busy at the North Pole.
You look at a beard as being a symbol of toxic masculinity like I look at callous-free hands on a man as being a symbol of weakness.
You view my beard as being something that demonstrates that men don’t respect women. I adorn it as a sign that men are meant to protect, respect and provide for women.
You view the term “boys will be boys” as disgust as you encourage boys to be girls and girls to be boys. I view the term “boys will be boys” as recognition that there’s a biological difference between men and women and boys are energetic little creatures that need an outlet for the testosterone that’s starting to grow in their body.
Remember, Gillette. Spartans had beards because they were fearless warriors. They were protectors. They were defenders. They were filled with character and integrity and honor. They owned their manliness and weren’t afraid of it.
Congratulations on your big PR move. But remember, while you’re sitting around a white board trying to figure out how to sell more razors … these bearded bastards are doing bad things to bad people because SOMEONE has to hold the line between good and evil…. and it’ll never be you.
We’ve got your six, even though you don’t have ours.
#BeardUpAmerica #GunsOutBeardsOut
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