Dick's Sporting Goods Guns: Controversy Following Change in Firearms Policy

While many stores experience record gun sales on Black Friday, Dick’s Sporting Goods might be the noticeable exception once all the numbers shake out. That’s because the firearms policies enacted by Dick’s have raised the ire of gun owners across the country.

Guns.com reported that the retailer stopped selling semiautomatic firearms in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting spree on Dec. 14, 2012. Dick’s inventory of firearms was drastically reduced and many mainstay items came off the shelves.

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Then, during the Christmas 2013 season, Dick’s backpedaled on its Black Friday special. Customers who purchased Troy Carbines had their orders canceled and their money returned, Guns.com said, also noting that Dick’s sales had dropped 2.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012.

What that means for Black Friday sales to come is not yet clear, but it’s likely that angry gun owners — and uncertain purchasers — may avoid the retailer in large numbers. From a customer service standpoint, Dick’s may have pushed the envelope and lost.

In terms of the latest statistics, Black Friday gun sales surpassed all expectations, even as retailers in other sectors experienced disappointing performance. According to FBI statistics, close to 176,000 background checks — a clear indicator of sales — were performed on November 28. That made it the second-highest day on record and equated to one check roughly every two seconds, FBI statistics show.

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There have been other complaints against Dick’s gun-sales policy. In March, Freepatriot.org reported that a man, after presenting his firearms owners identification card to buy some .308 cartridges, was asked a series of questions at the Dick’s in Niles, Illinois. These included his date of birth and FOID card number, along with a scan of his card. The man declined to answer and walked out of the store without making the purchase.

“This is nothing short of an invasion of privacy and discrimination against law-abiding Illinois gun owners,” blogger Eric Reed wrote in his post on the incident.

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