Dick's Policy on Hand Guns,

[Dr.Who]

Yesterday I was running around and happened into a Dick's Sporting goods store that just opened in our area. I was looking for some 44Mag. Went to the back corner of the store to the gun counter. I was looking over the counter at the ammo and one of the sales person's was taking to another customer about their gun selection (Lack of Hand Guns).

I over heard the sales person tell the customer that it is "against Dick's Policy to sell handguns, because they feel that they are used in too many crimes and because Dick's is located in metro areas where there is high crime potential". I could not believe what I heard.....

So the same sales person came over to me and asked if he could help Me. Said Yes, looking for 44Mag. He then started looking for the Ammo that I saw in front of me. I asked him what Dick's policy was on Hand Guns, that he just told the other guy (the other guy was still there and listening, I believed shocked). The Sales Person then basically told me the same thing. "Hand Guns are too dangerous and are used in too many crimes in our cities, but we sell the ammo".

So I say.... Hand Guns are too Dangerous and kill too many people, yet you sell the ammo that is used in the handguns. You also sell Rifles, shotguns, archery gear.... Dick's can't have it both ways and I do not need to buy my ammo or anything here. I heard the other customer say I agree and as I turned, another customer was nodding his head. All 3 of us left the store without buying a thing.

Now Dick's has a black mark for me and my family. They made a mistake bringing their liberal morality to this very conservative county of Illinois. They made the choice and so must I. I have always had a problem with the Dick's name and now it is magnified.

Sorry Guys, had to get that out of my system....

The age of the clerk was in his 30's....

 

[Duncan223]

+1 for the good guys.

 

[cbsbyte]

I do not believe what the salesman stated is the true reason why Dicks does not sell handguns. Dicks is not a real gun store they are a mass market sports store that happens to sell hunting gear. Walmart does not sell handguns probably for the same reason Dicks doesn't.

 

[repo]

I hear Walmart sells handguns in Alaska, but they have bears there. Both of those stores put the hunting slant on their gun sales because hunting is somewhat PC. To alot of people, gun = hunting. I HATE when people hear I'm into guns and then start asking me about hunting. I've never hunted in my life and have no plans to.

 

[Sharp Phil]

Dicks, Wal*Mart, K-Mart... These stores don't support your Second Amendment Rights and they're slowly phasing out what they do carry related to firearms, simply because their management is comprised of cowards who would rather not bother. My first handgun, a Smith and Wesson 629, was purchased at a Dicks in Rochester, New York, in the early 1990s. It wasn't long after that, come to think of it, that they stopped carrying handguns completely. In more recent memory I bought a Ruger 10/22 at a Dicks in a mall in Syracuse, and the guy behind the counter was such a... DICK... that I told myself I'd never buy anything from those fools again.

I haven't.

 

[longeyes]

The Second Amendment is not a profit center for mass merchandisers. The rest follows. Why do you think corporate America is increasingly pro-illegal alien? Because they care about "the law?" No, they care about the bottom-line, not the Bill of Rights. For some of us, who are tired of the Invisible Hand tightening its grip on our privates, this is a problem.

 

[shaggycat]

The Second Amendment is not a profit center for mass merchandisers. The rest follows. Why do you think corporate America is increasingly pro-illegal alien? Because they care about "the law?" No, they care about the bottom-line, not the Bill of Rights. For some of us, who are tired of the Invisible Hand tightening its grip on our privates, this is a problem.

That invisible hand of which you speak is the heart and soul of our economic system.

 

[VARifleman]

When they took over Galyans, they gave up the multimillion dollar market that Galyans had selling handguns. The guy that was telling me about this was with Galyans and described it as "the good store" or "the good old days".

 

[TrybalRage]

I remember hearing this years ago. The excuse was that Dick's is family oriented, and handguns serve no purpose in family related activities.

 

[logical]

Forget for a second what the counter-jockey said....they have little if any idea why Dick's does what it does.

If they find that filling the glass covered counters with Fish Finders makes more profit than trying to stock a saleable selection of handguns, it's simply a smart business decision. They aren't affecting your 2nd ammendment rights by doing so. Go to a damn gun store...Dicks and other mass merchandiser sports stores were never any good with handguns anyhow...it's for the better that they stick to tennis rackets.

 

[Thain]

Three years ago, looking to purchase myself a Remington 870 I went to Dick's, lured by their ad. This particular Dick's had been a Galyon's (sp?) only one weekend earlier, and I did not register the name change until I was leaving... a good deal later.

I went in, hiked past the jogging clothes, went up the giant escalator, hiked past the snow boards, the skies, the fishing gear, and eventually, hiked past the camo and stood in front of the gun rack.

Two Dick's employees stood offtoone side, behind the counter, near the door to the backroom. The store had openned about ten minutes earlier, and they were both lookign at the ad and talking. Now, I've work a lot of retail sales jobs, and I assumed they had somesort ofproblem with the ad and were discussing it... wrong price, limited quanities, that sort of thing.

So, I let them be. I spotted the Wingmaster I wanted behind the counter, noted the price matched what I'd been told, and decided to wait...

Forty-five minutes later, I went back downstairs, told the manager I would never return to her store and why. I walked out, and have never returned to Dick's hence.

Y'see, I've had too many sales jobs in my life to put up with **** customer service... and 45 minutes spent staring at the thign I wantto buy, with two saleguys ten feet away, who never bother to speak to me... that is **** service.

 

[Moondancer]

I stopped at Dick's two weeks ago to buy some .45 ACP ammo for a range trip the following day. As I (to paraphrase earlier posts) walked past the camping, and exercise, and running, and... equipment to get to the shooting section I walked past two employees at the entrance to the hunting/fishing area.

I went to the counter, unmanned of course, and looked at the ammo on the shelves. I also checked out the rifles... no EBRs, but I'd expect that. I waited for one of the employees to wander back, knowing that they'd seen me go by. And waited. And waited. And waited. I checked out their CamelBaks. And waited. I looked at cleaning supplies as I wanted a .45 jag for my Kimber, and waited. I even looked at their two-way radios while I waited. And waited.

Finally, I gave it up and went looking for some help. "Want some ammo." He came with me.

I bought 100 rounds of Remington 230-grain hardball but I sincerely doubt if I'll ever go back for shooting supplies. I canNOT abide poor service.

 

[AlaskaErik]

Dicks, Wal*Mart, K-Mart... These stores don't support your Second Amendment Rights and they're slowly phasing out what they do carry related to firearms, simply because their management is comprised of cowards who would rather not bother.

I recently talked about gun sales with my local Wally World sporting goods manager and he said that they're phasing out firearms at many Wal-Marts due to poor sales. He said that too many of his long arms take forever to sell, even in Alaska. I got the impression that he was pretty pro 2nd, but that in the end, it was a profitability issue, not a moral one. If Wal-Mart can sell something else that has a higher profit margin and doesn't decrease customer traffic, then guns will go. I took Econ 101 and I can understand their point of view.

 

[Professor K]

I had a bad Dicks experience, too. I went to fill up my co2 tank, they told me I had to be 18 to fill a tank of compressed gas. Alright, fine, I get my mom, then I get my receipt, I have 3 tanks. I wait 20 minutes, just stand there nicely in the gun section with my receipt, waiting for someone. I go tell a few employees I need my co2 tanks filled, no response. Finally one guy comes to fill them after 20 minutes of me nicely waiting. Then he tells me he cant fill 2 of them because I had no orings. They stock 100ish paintball guns, yet have NO replacement orings for their co2 tanks, smart...

So I wait 20 minutes to go get my co2 tanks filled, only to get one filled and really bad customer service.

I'm never going back there again, the paintball store in Meriden, while the drive is 20 minutes, they fill for cheaper, dont require you to be 18, and dont make me stand there for 20 minutes.

 

[LawBot5000]

Publically traded companies care about the 2nd amendment when it affects their bottom line. See Zumbo. Just like companies cared about racial discrimination in the 50s and 60s when it affected their bottom line, there is an obvious way to make corporations take notice of your particular issue. That way is the boycott.

The main difficulties in organizating a boycott are:
-willlpower, as mentioned
-most non-firearms companies dont really voice an opinion on RKBA since it has nothing to do with their business model. They can always claim any antigun policy is about liabillity or some other hokey excuse because that is usually true, thanks to an overly cautious corporate counsel.
-gun owners that dont care
But it really helps if you tell the company that you are boycotting them for their stance on a particular issue. Be prepared to stop boycotting them if they give a perfectly good explanation for their policy or if they change their policy but not in the exact way you wanted. No sense in coming across as unreasonable.

As for Dick's, they have no excuse for their current policy because
a) all of the gun dealer/manufacturer related negligent entrustment/negligent marketing/public nuisance claims were thrown out of court as misapplications of those legal theories
b) Protection of Lawful Commmerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) kills any potential future suits Dick's is likely to be subject to
c) and liability aside, it is an asinine policy- you sell long guns so the anti-gunners already hate you. All youre doing is pissing off the gunnies to appease non-customers.

 

[Titan6]

Official Corporate Policy

at many of these stores is more closely guarded than the Pentagon. I was in wallyworld three weeks ago looking for some .45 ACP and some .45 LC. They didn't have either. I asked when they were getting more in and the nice lady said that they were not going to carry it anymore because it was a pistol round. I giggled a little noticing the several cases of 9mm and .38s. she said these could be used in other guns than pistols and they would still carry them. Instead of making fun of the nice lady and since it was Sunday so I drove across town to a different WW and got the last pack of .45 ACP.
I was there today and of course they had plenty more on the shelves.

Many employees don't know what the corporate HQs is doing so they just make up an answer or repeat whatever the latest rumor is.

 

[LawBot5000]

It's not secret, they probably just dont have one. Some guy probably looked at the numbers and said "oh we dont move much of calibers x, y and z so lets stop selling it." The clerk knows nothing above her position so whether it came down from the board of directors or the store manager is the same to her.

 

[Travis McGee]

Handguns don't kill people.

Bullets flying through the air really fast do.

 

[The Deer Hunter]

Unfortunately for alot of people, me included, Dicks and other such stores are the only place to get cases of ammo and such. The next closest place would, I would have to say, would be Kittery Trading post.

But thats a crappy policy.ignorance.

 

[go_bang]

Dick's is a useless to half-useless store anyways. Not worth my time any more. The one near me stocks less than half the necessary gear unless it's a clothing or shoe dept. Maybe they have a good selection of sticks and balls, but beyond that it's quite pathetic. The camping section hardly has anything. The backpacking section is just as horrid. The firarms dept is over half paintball and air guns. Why they even bother in these areas is beyond me.

 

[Igloodude]

Many employees don't know what the corporate HQs is doing so they just make up an answer or repeat whatever the latest rumor is.

Indeed. I've been to the Salem NH Wal-Mart three times to buy pistol ammo. They asked to check my ID two of the three times. The first time they explained it was because they can't sell to Mass residents that don't have a permit (a NH store abiding by Mass laws? okay whatever), the second time they explained that they can't sell pistol ammo to someone underage (I'm 37 and look older than that, but at least that sounds like a more viable policy), and the third time (since I asked why they weren't checking my ID) I just got a blank look, they'd never heard of a policy about checking IDs for selling ammo.

 

[Handyman]

I bought my first handgun at Galyans , on sale , just before it changed to Dicks. About 5 years ago all the local chain sporting goods stores and the Walmarts around here stopped selling handguns . More recently most of them ,except for Dicks , stopped selling all guns [ but still sell paintball ]. The reason I heard why they stopped selling guns was that the stupid state laws and all the rediculous paperwork that has to be done makes selling guns more trouble than it's worth . Some small gun shops in the state closed for the same reason - not worth the trouble .
I agree , Dicks has poor customer service .
Support your local gun shop .

 

[rkh]

The clerk is probably some high school flunkie who doesn't know up from down.

Save your outrage until you hear it from the top.

 

[Robert J McElwain]

A few years ago, when Dick's bought out Galyan's, I went in when they were having their Galyan's inventory liquidation sale. All the things Dick's wouldn't be carrying. Obviously, they had great buys on handguns, and they had a Smith & Wesson Ladysmith .357 Magnum on sale for some ridiculous price. I still kick myself for not buying it.

I expect Dick's to last maybe another 5 years in the Kansas City area.

Bob

 

[Feanaro]

Dicks, Wal*Mart, K-Mart... These stores don't support your Second Amendment Rights

Because they don't sell the guns you want? Now that I think about it, I never realized how many of my Ninth Amendment rights Wal-Mart was violating.