The dicks at Dick’s—incremental virtue-signaling
With firearms so prevalent in recent media and here on TAH, our own Poetrooper penned a rather tongue-in-cheek article about a national sporting goods chain and their odd business model, which continues to baffle me.
Anyway, Poe’s usual outlet spiked his work immediately, no sense of humor, so he comes to us instead. Not that we at TAH have lower standards, we’re just more relaxed overall, and most I would imagine are pretty much in agreement with Poe.
See for your self.
Poetrooper
The NRA’s American Rifleman has an article reporting that Dick’s Sporting Goods, a national purveyor of all things outdoors is doubling down on its year-old, virtue-signaling move to remove firearms from its retail locations in response to pressures from liberal gun grabbers. This they are doing in spite of declining sales and earnings after last year’s loudly trumpeted move to show how in step they are with 2d Amendment deniers. With sales down by more than 3% in same-store reporting, Dick’s has decided that such a small decline wasn’t sufficient to establish them as real dicks so they’ve now decided to restrict firearms sales even more by announcing that they will stop selling these evil instruments of death in another 125 of their 850 stores.
Which immediately begs the question: if these scary black instruments are tools of the devil in those 125 stores, why are they not equally insidious instruments of murderous evil in all of Dick’s stores? What’s with Dick’s dicking around like this? What? Is this the limited modified hangout version of virtue-signaling? It would appear that those dicks at Dick’s are engaged in developing their moral code predicated on zip codes, gradually and incrementally signaling their liberal, social justice virtue by store location. “Here at Dick’s we’re so damn high-minded we’ll piously refuse to sell you a firearm in this store conveniently located for your local shopping but we’ll happily sell you all the scary black guns, magazines and ammo you require if you will but drive a short distance to one of our stores more distant from an activist college campus.” Now that’s a well thought out and morally justifiable strategy that will certainly deter the masses of deranged mass shooters.
Good grief! How on earth did Dick’s manage to get so many dicks assembled in their executive suites? Do the HR people at Dick’s have a series of psychological tests to administer to potential executives to determine if one is sufficiently dick-brained to lead all the dicks at Dick’s? What I really find amazing is, in the face of all this dicking around with the company’s financial future, how many clueless dicks out there are still holding on to shares of Dick’s. If the same-store sales figures continue to decline as they did this past year, those dicks are thoroughly and truly dicked.
Poe is such an introvert- he really should come out of his shell on occasion, and tell us how he really feels.
*grin*
Thanks, Poe.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Guest Post, Gun Grabbing Fascists, Politics
Harambe approved.
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I hope they don’t go under . They’ve been in my town for about 2 years and while I admit some of their stuff is overpriced. Tennis shoes are prob the cheapest I’ve bern able to find. They still sell guns but as a lot of you know it’s a personal reason why I don’t own. I think if you are legally able to and want to. Go for it .also I think Dicks has got a great selection of artificial lures and the only place in 40 miles I can get the Gary Yamamoto Kreature. If you haven’t tried it, do Bass tear the hell out of it!
Just to be clear. They stopped selling guns in 150 of their more than 800 stores. They did it because they expanded into less rural more liberal communities and these communities do not see sporting goods stores that sell guns as “their type” of sporting food store.
You all are acting like snowflakes over this.
DO take my advice that I gave you some time ago. First, wear some sunglasses, let your hair grow out a little, control your speech and slobbering and nobody will suspect that you’re the recipient of a badly botched lobotomy!
Let’s simplify it. Dick’s stopped selling guns in areas where gun sales weren’t profitable. Good business decision. Dick’s then claimed the moral high ground by selling the public a story about how they’re helping to end gun violence. Good marketing strategy.
So it all comes down to dollars and cents. Good old fashioned capitalism wrapped in cloak of “we care” virtue signaling.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Good old fashioned capitalism except that Dick’s head dickhead admitted last week that their decision had cost them more than $150 million to date. And every time this dickhead brags about how virtuous he is for his noble sacrifice, they lose more customers. I don’t really give a rat’s ass whether they sell guns or not–for several years now I’ve bought all my guns from Bud’s online–great selection, great service and great prices. We have a Dick’s about 20 miles from here that I have been in precisely once, and that was more than three years ago.
If the dicks at Dick’s don’t want to sell guns, fine–just quit telling us what good people they are for not doing so. Somehow I see the concept of running a chain of sporting goods stores without selling the essential tools for one of this nation’s oldest, most popular and widely practiced sports as being rather like operating a supermarket chain without a meat department.
I’m just sorry I can’t boycott Dick’s because I never liked them in the first place. Too pricey and fashion-showey.
If the head dick at Dick’s is so snowflakey about selling guns, why not just stop selling them at ALL stores?
Probably doesn’t have the balls to deal with a stockholder revolt if he did that.
You’re assuming he has balls to begin with.
Snowflakes? Hardly. I really don’t care how Dick’s chooses to run its business, and posting a satirical guest article won’t change anything they do.
Same with Dick’s stance on EBRs and refusing sales based on age- that won’t change anything, either.
Lighten up a bit, Lars. You can actually be readable when your not blazing away from the hip.
Blazing away from the lip?
Heh. That too.
let’s be clear. Dicks is not a “rural” company. Never heard of it until I moved to DC.
In “rural” areas, we don’t shop for firearms at Dicks, Cabelas or any other chain.
That is an “urban” thing.
And no, Sausalito is not “rural”.
So you just skimmed the post and didn’t actually read it with any comprehension. Got it.
Took the words out of my mouth, OldManchu.
Hoseboy is so predictable that, except for including a wider vocabulary when addressing him, there isn’t much left to say.
Boring – check
Repetitive – check
Uninformed – check
Jumps to conclusions – check
What else is there? Nothing.
Haha. I guess he is too busy learnin’ liberal stuff to mess with details over hear at TAH!
That is not what their company CEO said in public statements.
Nobody would say anything if Dicks had announced guns were not turning enough profit and would be removed to make room for more yoga pants.
What they did was make a huge announcement that they were anti second amendment and would destroy all unsold AR 15’s in inventory.
Instead of returning them to the manufacturers to be sold to patriots.
And they were planning to hire an anti gun lobbyist.
That is why all people of the gun refuse to patronize them any more.
And we want them to go out of business.
For being sanctimonious pricks against civil rights.
I wonder if Dicks up in boynton Beach and West Palm Beach are selling the AR 15’s??????
This stuff is outside my lane although I tend to agree with Oldrmepilot in the other thread that it’s about the rag trade. Dick’s isn’t choosing to eliminate gun sales for moral reasons; it’s doing it to avoid offending what it considers to be a target demographic for sales. That would likely be a 20-something millennial female who is shopping for fashion-forward yoga pants instead of some guy needing a cleaning kit for a .45 automatic.
The retail business is brutal, and seems to move in its own mysterious ways and cycles. Here’s an example:
Years ago in San Francisco, there was an Abercrombie & Fitch store about a block from Union Square. The chain had started in Manhattan, and was intended to act as “expedition outfitters” for urban dwellers with deep pockets and a yen to, say, go on an African safari. The products they carried were first rate, and in the gun department you might find things like Purdy shotguns and Weatherby rifles.
As time went on, Abercrombie & Fitch started to focus more on clothing until it’s now the entire stock in trade. I’m not sure why that kind of transition happens, but would suggest it’s not uncommon, and might be the kind of thing Dick’s is going through. Their gun ban might be more-or-less a matter of using circumstances to speed up an already predetermined timetable.
Somewhere in the treasure trove I call a garage, there is a pair of 1930’s era A&F bearpaw snowshoes, laminated hardwood with rawhide webbing. They’ve aged well except for a little spot on the binding where my wolf-puppy nibbled on it around 1983.
For you Navy types…I found a youtube channel that is all about warships. Mostly WW1 and WW2, but the channel is pretty darn good and I’ll admit that I have learned some things about naval service I never thought about.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Drachinifel
So here’s to ya, Navy!
I’ve been watching that for a while now.
I think the owner of the channel is the Russian that does a lot of the descriptions and parameters of the Naval vessels when in a fight.
Whichever it is and irregardless of who owns the channel, it is very well done. I can spend hours and hours on it and still learn more.
It might be a spinoff of World of Warships as they have a lot of the videos on there.
So whoever is doing the research is damn good at it and I have been a subscriber for over a year now.
I wonder if Richard “Big Dick” Stack, the founder of Dick’s in Binghamton, NY in 1948 is turning over in his grave? Big Dick’s son and current CEO, Ed Stack, has an estimated net worth of $1.2B. He’ll probably keep laughing all the way to bank while enjoying life in his $12M mansion in North Palm Beach, FL.
Never spent a dime at Dick’s. They’re assholes who pander to pussies. Both categories can get fucked.
^word^
“Get woke, go broke”
Ask a ton of other businesses, universities, cities like Seattle, Gillette, University of Missouri to name but a few that did exactly that.
Check out “Seattle is dying”, and laugh your ass off as the morons get their just desserts for voting for the clowns.
Oops, forgot the link to KOMO TV News.
https://hotair.com/archives/2019/03/18/komo-news-seattle-dying-special/
Slightly off topic: The HotAir story on Seattle also had a side panel link to an interesting AP story about problems Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh is having with a corruption issue. Apparently she was caught cutting large bulk deals for her self-published books with health care companies who were under consideration for city contracts.
https://apnews.com/cb11e65a4d0042bda440ef8e16d2c58b?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter
“…an indefinite leave of absence due to deteriorating health.”
Next will be her resignation to spend more time with her family.
I’m sure she’s trying to take a PAID Leave of Absence so she gets a free vacation at taxpayer expense. I wonder what else they’ll find on her, I’m sure this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg!
Using the Mein Kampf model…how progressive of her 🙂
I see it in Portland every time I drive into the city – the homeless are camping out under overpasses and in lots behind residential neighborhoods. The D’s always need more $$$ to fix the problem, but they never do fix it.
Profit drop easily explained. They eliminated/reduced the one product you can’t buy over the internet Guns. Go figure.
Major, you can buy guns online–I’ve purchased several in the past few years from Bud’s Gun Shop. They are a very reliable source with excellent pricing on a wide stock selection and quick shipment to your local FFL.
Check ’em out:
https://www.budsgunshop.com/catalog/index.php
Poetrooper, you are correct in that a person can buy a weapon online and have it shipped to an FFL. I bought a TALO Colt Commander that way a few years ago. However, I believe the vast majority of gun purchases are over the counter. Most people, would rather drive up the street than go online to buy a gun unless it was a specific gun that wasn’t available in the local market that they were after.
Dicks board of directors got week knees from pressure from anti-gun groups. If I was a big shareholder of the stock (I.e. mutual fund), I would be raising hell at the next annual meeting.
As far as I am concerned, there are better places to buy fishing gear, golf equipment, and Nike t-shirts. And forget about Yeti coolers, no matter where they are sold.
LOL..Wut..???
I must be getting cranky in my old age. Dick’s and liberal Media are all blocked along with those annoying robo calls trying to sell warranty’s and other bullshit. I’m drinking home brew and enjoying Chick filet.