In Other News….
Girl and gun dog
While it is interesting to see what was at one time a successful, profitable company drive itself into a pool of quicksand, the rate at which Dick’s is sinking into oblivion and terminal stupidity is increasing, apparently by the month, and possibly by the week.
Per this article from the NRA’s news, Dick’s now has a loss of $150 million to date, and seems to be intent on continuing down this road to oblivion. Paying customers are apparently avoiding Dick’s in droves.
I understand having principles and standing on them. Without them, we are essentially uncivilized barbarians.
Georgia Gator
However, this news of Dick’s loss comes directly on the heels of the California court’s decision, posted yesterday, that the ban on gun magazines of more than 10 rounds was unconstitutional, with the 9th Circuit Court-CA upholding Judge Benitez’s decision. That will, of course, go on to further testing, but it’s a start.
Gitarcarver provided this information yesterday afternoon:
The Volokh Conspiracy has a great analysis of the opinion:
http://reason.com/volokh/2019/03/29/district-court-permanently-enjoins-calif
The opinion itself can be read here:
Now, as I said, you know this will be tested elsewhere, and hopefully, elsewhere will include several other states with tight-assed rules about guns-n-stuff, but it’s a start. It will also go to the Supreme Court at some point. You can almost count on that. And no merchant is under the gun to sell equipment he wants to avoid carrying.
Since Dick’s is s publicly-held company, a reported loss of $150 million is a concern to anyone who holds stock in that company. Further mismanagement based on the owner’s egocentricity will send it deeper into the financial toilet. If you will recall, last year, the owner of Dick’s issued a statement saying the company would destroy all the weapons it had purchased, rather than returning them to the manufacturers for a refund, or otherwise divesting itself of no-longer-desired sales goods. A constant and consistent level of very stupid decisions based on a lack of business acumen, questionable principles, and vainglory and bad management is sending this company into the septic tank, making it a prospective target for either bankruptcy or buyout. Shareholders seem to now view Dick’s as a non-asset. Its high in September 2016 was $60.44. It is now barely $30+/- and slowly eroding away. I would guess that at some point, the company will be sold to bail out its debts and losses.
Personally, I prefer to support companies that are interested in expanding their market, such as Danner Boots or Bass Pro Shops, which owns Cabela’s. Both do everything possible to attract their customer base. LLBean is still in the semi-nostalgic camper/hiker/fisherman state, and is doing well. They know their customer base. I ordered a new pair of jeans from LLBean in mid-March. They arrived 3 days later. Likewise, there are those mom & pop shops that supply the needs of locals but which also welcome visitors as additions to their seasonal customer base. Spring/summer fishing at Sand Lake will start up in mid-April.
We all have choices. Most of the time, we make good choices. Sometimes, people are just like Dick’s.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Gun Grabbing Fascists, Guns, Liberals suck, Second Amendment
Death by self inflicted gun shy wound.
Tough shit for Dick’s, they did it to themselves!
Remember that mom&pop sporting goods place in Texas that got all that interwebz attention when this started? Their sign said, “We’re not Dick’s. ARs sold here!”
This business model of alienating half the potential customer base baffles me. Micheal Jordan is quoted as saying “Republicans buy sneakers too.” a much more realistic attitude for success in business.
Yup, which is why I’ll never understand these virtue signalling celebrities. Dwayne Johnson, Michael Jordan, and not too many others seem to get it that you don’t need to inject politics in everything.
Like Sam Adams beer now with their “Notorious RBG” beer..
It’s probably the sludge mopped up from the brewery floor.
Wasn’t Sam Adams CEO under fire for supporting some conservative cause recently?
Yvengling Brewery was probably THE first Corporate Entity targeted by TARDO Moonbats when they made themselves one of the first to endorse President Trump when he first announced his Candidacy for POTUS and I’m enjoying some of their product right now as I post this, *Mmmmmmm, aaaaahhhhh*…
Love that beer, polished off couple of pints last night.
My BIL says it is the oldest brewery in the US.
Their stock price is actually up from the time of the announcement to stop carrying AR’s. That was in FEB 2018 when it was about $32 a share to $36 a share today. It is well within market variability. The S&P 400 has been flat as a pancake the last 12 months.
Another textbook case of “Get Woke, Go Broke”.
I’d like to know just what it took to down that ‘gator in the photo up top.
Here ya go, ma’am:
https://www.fox4now.com/news/state/enormous-13-foot-alligator-found-in-georgia
13 feet. That’s one bodacious gator, which means he’s been around a LONG time! Sometimes, they get so big they can hardly move unless they’re in water.
Poor old thing. A few chickens might have helped him stick around a little longer.
A magnificent beast who had a damn good run. It’s the circle of life.
One Word – LAHTI
Best Supporting Firearm in a Novel (“Unintended Consequences”)
The gator that Adm. McCain Sr. (Comphibron 8) brought aboard the Okie 3 in a box was a lot smaller than the one in the pic. Quarter Deck OOD tried to pet it and it bit the tip of his finger. Didn’t dick’s at the time say that they were going to get rid of those Sturm Gewer 44 style “assault rifles? Fox news (NYC) mentioned the $$$$$ loss because they decided not to sell to 18 year olds or that they were getting rid of them. Anyone help me out on this.
Welcome to the South.
We have Dinosaurs.
Academy Sports opened up a store in my town a year or so ago. Dick’s has been an empty store ever since.
It’s a 2-1/2 hour drive from my place to the BassPro in Rancho Cucamonga if you don’t hit traffic. I’ve made the trip numerous times, and have never found it quiet.
It’s also a popular “rest stop” for Charlie strike teams from SoCal counties returning home from campaign fires upstate.
I was wondering how much the snowpack in the Sierras will offer in the way of fire control this year, TOW. Any ideas on that?
The weather map still shows it well above 60 inches, ditto up in Montana, Idaho and parts west of there.
Time will tell, but here’s my professional estimation. Fire activity in the Sierras should’ve significantly diminished compared to previous years, as the excess snowpack means that many areas won’t melt before next winter. Streams will run full, improving live fuel moistures downstream into the valleys and flatlands. For those fires that do get going, brand production and spotting potential should be significantly reduced. Increased rainfall in NorCal will have a similar effect on the north coast mountains and inland flatlands. North State will likely see a more traditional short fire season as a result. In SoCal, our live fuel moistures are also way up and will take a while to dry out.
The problem will be the grass crop, which has exploded with the wet winter. The grass will turn brown in the summer and, being a one-hour fuel, dead grass will be as dry as the ambient air and easier to ignite than gasoline on a hot day. There’s still lots and lots of heavy dead shit out there, and that overload of grass growing everywhere has the potential to carry fire right into it. Until the dead crap is burned out or otherwise removed, I will still have my worries.
Same for the local Cabela’s, TOW. Cabela’s is about 2 blocks from Dick’s, one can watch people drive by Dick’s all day to get to Cabelas.
If I had stock in Dick’s, I’d have sold it the minute I heard they would stop selling firearms.
At the same time, I can’t believe they’re losing money! I mean, all those anti-gun people are shopping there even more to help keep it afloat, aren’t they? Since they’re all about supporting companies that are anti-gun?
You are a funny, funny man, MSG Eric.
Apparently the anti-gun folks have sort memories and shorter loyalties.
One of their patron “saints” did say “Gratitude is a disease of dogs.”
Dicks and their holier-than-thou smoke signals, worth the paper they’re printed on.
SJW hubris kills.
My son and I hitting the Bass Pro Shop in tax-free New Hampshire tomorrow on the way to airport. My wife is coming home from women’s veterans retreat(she had fun). But I spend my cash were I feel supported.
Ditto.
Speaking of Bass Pro Shops, I went to one of their outlets and made the newest addition to my firearms family earlier this year, a stainless steel Kimber M1911, she’s a Beaut AND very accurate, it is hard to miss a target with that baby!
@Sapper – that store is about 3.5 miles from my house! I’m there at least twice a week for fishing/shooting gear. Couple other great gun stores up here in Hooksett, Rileys, and Shooters outpost…
I shop Cabela’s because they aren’t Dicks.
I buy most of what I need/want from a Mom and Pop place. Partly because I have been an independent owner operator of retail establishments and partly because I spent a good portion of my working days selling to Mom and Pop places. I do buy a lot of my staple groceries from K Roger. Do buy some stuff from Academy. Their distribution center is right down the road and they hired a lot of locals, not only when they were building it, but to run the place too. Three retail branches within 25 miles in either direction.
Pulled the fiber and copper cables into the dicks and spliced up the demarks when it was built. Haven’t been in there since that time over ten years ago. Dumbasses built the dicks less than 2 miles from the great big Bass Pro Shop. Did the telecommunications work at Bass Pro also. Ain’t bought nothing from them either. Did try to get some black powder and winged musket caps from them. They were way yonder too spendy and management copped an attitude when they found out we did WBTS Living History. Ain’t been back since. Shame when they bought Cabelas. That was still a family owned/oriented well run organization. Had bought a number of items from them, before Bass Pro took it over.
Marketing/Business 101. Don’t piss off customers. Usually once you lose one, you never get them back.
LLBean is great. I still wear their seersucker shirts and khaki pants since around 1982. Bought a pair of retro British Army walking shorts, down comforter, wool shirt jacs that were still made in the US, shorts, bathing suits etc. great place to do mail order. Vermont Country store is another great mail order company. I like typing my checks out on a portable Smith Corona type writer and using a paymaster mechanical check writer to put the amount in. And as someone mentioned in the past, I do not use a Quill Pen. When in a rush, I go online to order.
Speaking of which, how’s Gillette doing?
I buy firearms and ammo at local mom n’ pop gun shops here in the PDR of MA. Buy my running shoes from Olympia Sports. Jackets, sweaters, and house slippers come from LL Bean. REI is a great choice for backpacking and camping gear.
A mini-Bass Pro shop is pretty much across the road from me- aside from a limited and overpriced selection of sporting goods they also have a Beer Cave, and a very nice selection of overpriced spirits as well.
I don’t go there often, preferring a small gun shop owned by an officer on the board of my sportsman’s club, and either the base exchange or another long time beverage store that still has a drive up window.
There is a Dicks here, but after a couple visits I caught on that I wasn’t their target customer, even before the self imposed ban. I haven’t been back.
Dick’s was a millennial sissy sports store to begin with. Their major sales were soy apperal shit and expensive designer shoes. Nobody that really plays sports goes there anyway and their gun/ammo selection was always shit.
Rmember the the firearm industry didn’t boycott this business except 3 companies, Springfield armory, mossberg, and KS supply. Everyone else including all of the major manufacturers would rather literally make sheckles if it promoted anti 2nd amendment laws. Let that sink in.
What a bunch of dicks.
Their current stock price…$36.81
Their price the day before they announced they will not sell assault rifles…$32.84
Their price the day before they announced they will no longer sell guns in 125 of their stores…$38.89
There is no meaninful effect on stock price.
Dicks invested a lot to expand into middle and upper class west coast communities. It is these communities that they have stopped selling guns.
The reason is business not politics. People in these communities tend to see stores that sell guns as not “their type” of sporting goods store.
They are still selling guns in stores where customers expect and want to see guns for sale.
In the long run these “gunless” stores will go a long way to shift the Dick’s brand from duck hunters to conspicuous consumers.
The assault rifle ban was a political statement. Maybe unnecessary and maybe too early for the political environment. But it did a lot to draw coastal attention to the brand.
Been in a Dicks once. Wanted to buy a hand exerciser: “I don’t think we carry them”. Had to find them myself. However, the store I went to is a clothing store. Entire center of the store was from the rag trade. I watched our two big local sporting goods (non-firearm) stores convert from concentrating on sporting goods to clothing. Bean counters figured more profit on clothes (but you have to sell them and not put them on sale all the time). I watched Sport Chalet go from a great store with Scuba, fishing, cycling, golf, baseball etc to clothes-they filed BK. Same story for Sportmart-bye bye.
Dicks was deserted when I was there a couple of years ago. Too bad the owners of the independent store sold to them ’cause there’s no reason to go there not withstanding their dumb position on firearms.
if they think they can survive on the coastal non-elites they had better examine the service sporting goods story.
Stock prices will respond to falling profits. Even the oh so woke coastal tranzis will pull their trust funds when they realize they are not making money.
Dicks has conflated stock value with corporate value. Corporate value is predicated on the return on investment called profits. A company that does not return profits is dead.
That is why we have financial scandals. People–particularly those who have degrees from big business schools–don’t understand value. They only understand stock prices.
Dicks is doomed. It will be a slow death unless a financial scandal emerges, but it is coming.
I predict a future in which fishing, hunting, camping, and other non team sports are banned in all “blue” states. In fact, real efforts to end all shooting sports are already underway and hunting lands are being closed daily.
Yes, Dicks is doomed. And your Comrades doomed it.
Couple of fellow employees used to work at the local Dick’s… they describe it as ‘circling the drain’.
“They are still selling guns in stores where customers expect and want to see guns for sale”. Not in the Mitten State, oh unwise commie commentator.
I suspect it depends on the neighborhood you are in.
They have over 800 stores and stopped selling guns in 150 of them.
They chose stores that are in communities where guns turn off patrons.
Perhaps you live in a bougie community and are not as proletariat as you like to pretend, comrade.
I suspect it depends on the neighborhood you are in.
They have over 800 stores and stopped selling guns in 150 of them.
They chose stores that are in communities where guns turn off patrons. They are pushing to expand into wealthier, and less rural communities
Perhaps you live in a bougie community and are not as proletariat as you like to pretend, comrade.
And, I find you repetitive, boring and ill-informed. But, everyone here already knows that you’re all of that.
Dicks is still a dick !! I do mind at Money Mizer in Phenix Alabama -Pawn /Gun/Jewlery Shop-I could care less about California and its Politics and Government -It is a very nasty filthy trashy State !!
How about a company that understands our Constitution and stands up for our rights instead of outright lobbying to destroy them? You don’t want to sell guns anymore? Fine! (Still won’t shop there) But don’t join the anti-gun lobby.