Dick’s Sporting Goods May Stop Selling Guns In Twin Cities

TWIN CITIES, MN — Dick’s Sporting Goods, which banned assault-style weapons from all of its stores after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting last year, said Tuesday it will remove firearms from 125 of its lowest-performing stores later this year. That represents about 17 percent of Dick’s stores, but it’s not yet known if stores in Twin Cities will be affected.

The chain operates five stores in Twin Cities. They are:

• Burnsville
• Woodbury
• Minnetonka
• Richfield
• Roseville

Ed Stack, chief executive officer of the Coraopolis, Pennsylvania-based chain, said on a quarterly earnings call that if the decision works out well in the 125 stores, it will remove hunting gear — which includes rifles, ammunition and accessories associated with hunting — from even more stores, Bloomberg reported.

Last year, Dick’s gave the policy a trial run in 10 stores, resulting in a rise in fourth-quarter sales at those locations, Stack said on the call. The company replaced the hunting items with kayaks and other outdoor gear.

After it was revealed that accused Parkland shooter Nikolaus Cruz purchased a weapon from a Dick’s store, the chain removed not only assault-style weapons from its inventory, but also high-capacity magazines. The gun Cruz purchased was not used in the attack, which killed 17 people, but Stack said at the time that it could have been, The New York Times reported.

At the time, Dick’s also raised the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21.

That decision by Dick’s, once a major seller of firearms, angered many, including the powerful National Rifle Association, which called it a “strange business model.” The National Sports Foundation booted Dick’s from its membership rolls last year, citing “conduct detrimental” to the organization’s goals, and gun owners called for a mass boycott of the chain.

Stack was among four CEOs who signed a letter supporting the universal gun control bill passed last month by the U.S. House of Representatives. He also joined Everytown For Gun Safety, a nonprofit founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that advocates for gun control.

Stack made clear on the call that the backlash from pro-Second Amendment groups was a “meaningful driver” in sales declines. For the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2018, net income fell to $102.6 million. This year, the company expects its sales to remain flat or increase by 2 percent.

The chain operates 729 stores under the Dick’s Sporting Goods logo, 94 Golf Galaxy stores and 35 Field & Stream Stores.

The AR-15-style weapons and other semi-automatic rifles were removed from Field & Stream stores after the Parkland shooting, but stores under the Dick’s Sporting Goods banner had already halted sales of those types of weapons after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 26 people, including 20 children, were killed.

On Tuesday, trading of Dick’s shares fell 11 percent from Monday’s close.