Pity poor Dick's. Yep, Dick's Sporting Goods and their subsidiary Field & Stream stores look like ghost towns these days in America's heartland. After reading stories about gun companies ending sales to Dick's, and the company's hiring of gun control lobbyists in Washington, I decided to visit the Champaign, Illinois Dick's and Field & Stream locations.
Yes, it's anecdotal, but from what I saw last Tuesday afternoon, it sure looks like America's gun owners have abandoned Dick's – and Field & Stream. I visited the gun area of Field & Stream and saw a single lonely sales guy cleaning the glass display.
Thoughts of the old Maytag repairman ads seeped into my mind. I have to hand it to him, if you got time to lean, you've got time to clean. He just needed to clean more than the already spotless glass on the display cases. More on that in a moment…
Nobody else was browsing the shelves for the widely-spaced ammunition. And I mean NOBODY.
Turning around, I looked through the rest of the Field & Stream store, and down the main aisle of the attached Dick's store. It was like waking up on the set of Dawn of the Dead.
I reassuringly tapped my heater with my elbow and felt better. Yep, still there, ready for a zombie to pop out. The place appeared completely empty of shoppers – and staff. If there had not been soft music playing, it would have been really eerily creepy.
As I walked through the place looking for the restroom, I noticed a number of "SAVE" signs where customers could save $0. Perhaps we could save $0 and send that "cornhole" game to the Dick's shareholders meeting coming up soon. After all, those owning shares in the beleaguered company will soon be taking it up the cornhole if these trends continue chain-wide.
Furthermore, shareholders might need something to keep them busy while CEO "Special" Ed Stack spends his time alienating the rest of The People of the Gun. Instead of managing his business. And if Dick's other stores look like these, their fearless leader Special Ed will preside over Dick's descent into bankruptcy, much the same way MC Sports and Gander Mountain have gone before them.
Cruising back through the gun department, I noticed some of those dreaded "high capacity" magazines. Wait! I thought ol' Special Ed said his company had pulled all of those evil things. Wait! He did! In his own words, as published at USA Today…
We will no longer sell firearms to anyone under 21 years of age. We will no longer sell high capacity magazines.
(Emphasis added.) Oh wait, maybe that was a mistake. Someone probably just missed a 13-round magazine.
Nope. Not a mistake. Field & Stream continues to sell "high capacity" magazines for handguns (these wouldn't fly in New York or California). I also found a whole row of GLOCK and M&P standard capacity replacement mags.
So Stack did not remove all of his stores' high capacity magazines. Hard to believe he would lie to Mr. and Mrs. America, right?
As if this didn't pose enough bad news for Dick's, sales remain so slow that dust has begun to pile up on shelves (and the merchandise). These things happen when a big box store has no customers. One one lone guy can't dust that whole store.
Pro-tip for the day: If you have shares of Dick's Sporting Goods, a good time to sell them would have been last year.
This is great news! Dump Dicks, Dump the Democrats, Dump them all that support gun control.
I hope they discount their ammo at the liquidation sale. 50% off would be a nice start. or I will come in and load up a truck to destroy it for them. Dreadful ammo!
I would imagine the wholesalers will come in any buy Dick's surplus ammo at vastly discounted prices and that same ammo will end up on the shelves of your local Walmart and Rural King stores.
I dont trust Dicks.