‘During 2019, we made meaningful changes across our business, which fueled our strongest annual comp sales gain since 2012 …’
(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) Dick’s Sporting Goods said Tuesday that about additional 440 stores will no longer carry hunting goods, including ammunition and firearms.
The announcement follows the company’s 2019 decisions to ban ArmaLite-style rifles, raise the minimum age for a firearm purchase to 21, and remove ammunition and firearms from 125 stores, Fox News reported.
Given the 726 Dick’s stores in the United States, the new policy will eliminate hunting departments at more than half of the nation’s stores.
Shares jumped sharply Tuesday morning after the statement, climbing more than 12 percent, from $34 per share to more than $38.
Since then, Dick’s stock has tumbled to about $31 per share.
Nevertheless, Dick’s chairman and CEO Edward W. Stack said evidence showed that the sporting-goods store was trending in the right direction.
“During 2019, we made meaningful changes across our business, which fueled our strongest annual comp sales gain since 2012 and a 14-percent increase in non-GAAP earnings per diluted share over 2018,” Stack said.
“I’d like to thank all our teammates for their hard work and commitment to Dick’s Sporting Goods, which made this performance possible,” he added.
Stack reported “strong fourth quarter results” from 2019 and “growth across each of our three primary categories of hardlines, apparel and footwear.”
Second Amendment supporters and gun manufactures distanced themselves from Dick’s Sporting Goods last year after the company announced that it had hired gun-control lobbyists in Washington, D.C.
In response, Mossberg & Sons, an American firearms manufacturer, said they would discontinue business with the company.
“It has come to our attention that Dick’s Sporting Goods recently hired lobbyists on Capitol Hill to promote additional gun control,” Mossberg & Sons CEO Iver Mossberg wrote last May.
“Make no mistake, Mossberg is a staunch supporter of the U.S. Constitution and our Second Amendment rights, and we fully disagree with Dick’s Sporting Goods’ recent anti-Second Amendment actions,” he said.