Dick’s Sporting Goods continues to see its sales drop after a change in gun sales policy.
Sales at Dick’s dropped 4.5 percent the past three months, the Washington Examiner reported. In February, Dick’s raised the minimum age to purchase a gun from 18 to 21 and stopped selling modern sporting rifles such as the AR-15. The company gun policy change was due to the Parkland, Florida, school shooting the same month.
“Specific to hunt, in addition to the strategic decisions made regarding firearms earlier this year, sales continued to be negatively impacted by double-digit declines in hunt and electronics,” said Lee Belitsky, chief financial officer, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The weaker gun sales have affected sales in other departments at Dick’s, since the store is now attracting fewer hunters, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Despite the 4.5 percent drop in third-quarter net sales, however, the company is considering taking the policy further and removing all hunting products from its stores, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The company has already begun a test run at 10 stores with low hunting equipment sales. The store substituted products from other categories.
Gun seller Arnie Gallegos of ABQ Guns in Albuquerque, New Mexico, told KOAT he is skeptical about Dick’s rationale in the policy change.
“Realistically the assault is an action, not an item,” said Gallegos. “Does it make a difference in the industry? No. Does it make Dick’s Sporting Goods and their CEO and them feel better? Sure.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, gun sales, in general, are slow. Gun sales tend to go up during Democratic national leadership since gun buyers anticipate stricter gun-control laws. Belitsky said the current overall industry trend is also impacting Dick’s gun sales.
Legal action against Dick’s
A 20-year-old man sued Dick’s Sporting Goods earlier this year because he was not permitted to buy a gun from a Field & Stream located in Oregon. Field & Stream is a hunting specialty brand of stores owned by Dick’s. A judge denied Tyler Watson a restraining order on the Dick’s policy, but the case is ongoing, KDRV reported.
Walmart had also enacted a similar policy. The store was also sued by Watson around the same time. According to Fox analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano, Watson has a good case. He said on Fox that some states prohibit age discrimination starting at 18, and Oregon is among those states.
A 19-year-old, whose family owns a gun store, is also suing Dick’s in Michigan. Tristin Fulton had his uncle film the episode at Dick’s, where he wasn’t allowed to even touch a gun, much less buy one, he told Vice News in an interview.
Michigan civil rights law forbids companies from age discrimination.
Former Dick’s employee Griffin Mccullar left his job at Dick’s due to the policy change. He told Fox News he was quickly hired by EJW Outdoors, another hunting specialty store without the restrictions at Dick’s.
“You can serve in the military, you can vote at 18, but you can’t buy a gun at Dick’s Sporting Goods—a constitutional right, and you can’t buy one there,” Mccullar told Fox.
Mccullar’s resignation letter is posted on his Facebook page. He also has many photos of his hunting adventures. He told Fox News he thinks he started hunting at 13-years-old. He doesn’t think the gun restrictions are an effective way to end school shootings.
