Dick's Sporting Goods Says Gun-Control Stance Hurt Business, May Close Field & Stream

Dick's Sporting Goods told investors during the Goldman Sachs Retailing Conference that its gun-control stance hurt sales of its hunting business, outdoors business, and that it may close its outdoor-focused Field & Stream stores.

Edward Stack, chairman and CEO of Dick's, said during the event that the sporting goods chain's recent 3.9 percent drop in same-store sales was the result of a mix of factors beyond their control as well as some he called "self-imposed." Specifically, he said, "the decisions we made on firearms" negatively affected their bottom line but the drop in sales was something they expected. They did not, however, regret their decision to change a number of their gun-sales policies and back new gun-control legislation.

"Well I think it's definitely a factor, and it's nothing that we didn't anticipate," Stack said during the call. "As we put out kind of our guidance for the year and our earnings guidance for the year, we knew this would happen when—we've made some decisions on firearms in the past and we've had a pretty good idea of what these consequences were going to be. We felt that was absolutely the right thing to do. We would do the same thing again if we had a mulligan, so to speak, to do it again."

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