In an interview that aired on CBS News about corporations entering the gun control debate, the CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods, Ed Stack, said he chose to have more than five million dollars worth of “assault type rifles” destroyed rather than sell them. The decision was a clearly emotional response by the CEO because they sold a gun to the Parkland shooter (whom we will never name), even though it was NOT the gun he used, but “it could have been.”
At one point in the interview, Stack said “I don’t understand how somebody, with everything that’s gone on, could actually sit there and say, ‘I don’t think we need to do a background check on people who buy guns.’ It’s just, it’s ridiculous.”
To people who understand existing gun laws, that comment is quite baffling. As a company with a federal firearms license (FFL), Dick’s is legally required to complete a background check for every gun they sell. This leaves me wondering if Mr. Stack remotely understands the law or the steps that his own company had to take before selling any firearm to anyone.
Not only did Stack choose to destroy more than $5M worth of inventory, but it is quite possible that it cost the company additional money to have the rifles “turned into scrap metal,” which would only hurt the company and it’s shareholders even more.
That bizarre business move came at about the same time that Dick’s reported significant monetary losses which may eventually force them to close all 35 Field & Stream stores (owned by Dick’s), which are located across the country. Those losses stemmed from publicly announced changes to their firearms sales policies, which the company implemented in February, 2018, shortly after the Parkland shooting.
The changes Dick’s made to their firearms sales policies in 2018 included a decision to no longer sell “assault type rifles,” or modern sporting rifles for those who prefer a more accurate name for a firearm category. Dick’s also decided to no longer sell any long gun to persons under 21 years of age, or sell “high capacity” (actually, standard capacity) magazines, despite it being perfectly legal to do so.
Those policy changes put Dick’s on the receiving end of a huge backlash from gun owners, firearms rights groups and a number of firearms manufacturers. Mossberg, Springfield Armory, and other manufacturers immediately stopped selling firearms to the sporting goods chain as a result of their new policies.
It takes a special kind of “business management genius” to quite literally destroy $5,000,000 worth of merchandise when your company is already struggling financially and you are considering closing 35 stores. But hey, I’m sure their investors bought stocks in the hopes that the company would lose money, right?
Later in the interview, when Stack was talking about a 2012 decision to temporarily pull AR-15’s off their shelves, Stack said ” We just didn’t want to sell the assault-style weapons that could inflict that kind of damage.”
Again, to people who understand firearms, Stack’s comments continue to show his ignorance. Folks who understand guns know what kind of damage could be inflicted by a proficient shooter with a 12 gauge shotgun and the proper ammunition. Either Stack is ignorant about firearms, or he is just playing on people’s emotions like so many politicians do, or quite possibly he is doing both.
On a similar note, I find it extremely ironic that people on the political left who often rant endlessly about how “evil corporations” attempt to influence laws and lawmakers, are perfectly okay with corporations attempting to influence laws and lawmakers so long as they agree with the way the influence leans.
If you like the content you see here, visit our home page for more articles, and remember to sign up for our newsletter.
