Dick’s Sporting Goods Will DESTROY All Guns Removed From Shelves

Dick’s Sporting Goods pulled all of their guns they determined to be “assault weapons style” from the shelves in the wake of the Parkland Florida school shooting.  Now, they’ve announced that they will destroy all guns that weren’t sold because they took them off the shelves.

“We are in the process of destroying all firearms and accessories that are no longer for sale as a result of our February 28th policy change,” a spokesperson from Dick’s Sporting Goods told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. “We are destroying the firearms in accordance with federal guidelines and regulations.” Instead of  returning them to the manufacturer, the sports retailer decided to destroy the “assault-style rifles.”

Following the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the retailer had pulled modern sporting rifles from its namesake stores nationwide. When it later opened its specialty Field & Stream stores, it introduced the modern sporting rifles to its product line there. The company did not comment on what it did with the firearms it pulled from its Dick’s stores in 2012.

According to Fox News, on February 28, 2018, the Pittsburgh-based company announced it would immediately stop selling assault-style rifles and ban the sale of all guns to anyone under 21 at their Field & Stream stores. It was not immediately clear how many firearms will be destroyed but all of the rifles will be demolished at distribution centers and then delivered to a salvage company to be recycled.

“Thoughts and prayers are not enough,” the company said in a statement. “We support and respect the Second Amendment, and we recognize and appreciate that the vast majority of gun owners in this country are responsible, law-abiding citizens. But we have to help solve the problem that’s in front of us.”  So they intend to destroy guns that good people would never use to harm anyone unless a self-defense situation warranted it.  That’s like castrating yourself because your neighbor has too many kids. But no one has ever accused a gun control activist of using logic.

Dick’s Sporting Goods is also facing a battle with the gun rights crowd over their controversial decision to deny 18-20 year-olds their Constitutional and basic fundamental human right of self-defense by refusing to sell them guns. The sporting goods store is currently facing two lawsuits due to the self-imposed age limit on purchasing firearms because legally, those who are 18 may purchase guns.

 

Raising Rifle-Buying Age to 21 Would Disarm American Heroes and Spit on Founding Intent

Too young at the time of his legendary heroics to be trusted with a rifle? (U. S. Army publicity photo)

The latest citizen disarmament plot currently being hatched will raise the minimum age for rifle purchases to 21. While some are specifically calling out semi-automatic rifles, others want it all. Such plans are  gaining traction at the state and federal level by no shortage of Democrat opportunists and “bipartisan” Republican panderers, including Sen. Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump.

An interesting article over at Firearms News notes Audie Murphy would have been deemed “too young” to be trusted with a rifle at the time his legendary heroics earned him recognition as the most decorated combat soldier of WWII.  It goes on to imagine a gun store clerk telling not just him, but “our young combat heroes, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who may have lost limbs and fought for our freedom, that they have no Second Amendment freedom because they are not 21 years old.”

Could anything be more offensive and absurd?

That’s what these oath-breaking poltroons are doing when they propose disarming Americans old enough to give “the last full measure of devotion” to their country. That’s what corporate cowards like Edward Stack of Dick’s Sporting Goods (and Walmart and other despicable gunkapo profiteers) are saying.

As for those proposing legislative changes, that would also seem to fly in the face of 10 U.S. Code § 246 – Militia: composition and classes:

“(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard. (b) The classes of the militia are— (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.”

No guns allowed?

The Second Militia Act of 1792 recognized 18 as the age of conscription, and the Founders recognized that this did not in itself establish limits and bans. From Continental Congress Delegate and political economist Tench Coxe:

“THE POWERS OF THE SWORD ARE IN THE HANDS OF THE YEOMANRY OF AMERICA FROM SIXTEEN TO SIXTY. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared to any possible army must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are these militia? [A]re they not ourselves. Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American. . . . [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”

Pretenders, frauds and outright traitors seeking to usurp a birthright are no friends to Liberty. They’re wrong on history, wrong on morality, wrong on the Constitution…

There will be no compromise with such as these. Equivocating, desperate excuse-making and weasel-words notwithstanding, anyone – anyone – seeking to exploit the bloody failures of tyranny by imposing more Intolerable Acts, infringements and restrictions on freedom is selling me out, selling you out, selling our children out, and should be spoken to  accordingly and in no uncertain terms.

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If you believe in the mission of Oath Keepers, to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, please make a donation to support our work.  You can donate HERE.

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David Codrea’s opinions are his own. See “Who speaks for Oath Keepers?”

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Dick’s Leads the Way on Divide-and-Conquer Defeatism

The Second Amendment according to Dick’s CEO Edward Stack (Adapted from “George Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge,” John Ward Dunsmore, Public Domain)

“Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc., one of the largest retailers of its kind in the United States, is taking new steps to curtail the sale of firearms, including ending sales of assault-style rifles and banning the sale of guns to people younger than 21,” ABC News reported Wednesday.

“We need to do something,” Chairman and CEO Edward Stack told Good Morning America. “And we’re taking these guns out of all of our stores permanently.”

“Something” like what? Side with those who blame and want to ban guns? You’ll notice Stack offers no other “solutions.”

It’s not the first time Dick’s has thrown non-“sporting purposes” gun owners under the bus. They’d abandoned them in time of need after Sandy Hook when they ceased selling “modern sporting rifles” in all but their Field & Stream subsidiaries, and with this new announcement, the self-imposed “ban,” including on “high capacity magazines,” is complete.

But it’s their right, right? They’re not hindering anyone else’s ability to purchase guns of their choice elsewhere. This is just an internal business decision.

Bull. It’s abandoning their brothers-in-arms on the battlefield in a time of dire need and leaving them to stand or fall while the cowardly profiteers who want the benefits of gun owner business without the rigors or risks slink away. It is emboldening the enemy. Their competitors who will not collapse and turn tail, but who hold fast and faithfully and stand with us through the storm, are the ones who earn our continued association.

And today’s decision is already being put to great use by the enemies of the right to keep and bear arms. Look at all the triumphant “news” articles.  The anti-gunners (and anti-hunters) are loving it.

Besides, Dick’s has gone beyond just controlling its own business. They’ve joined forces with the gun-grabbers to try and control ours.  From the company “media statement”:

• At the same time, we implore our elected officials to enact common sense gun reform and pass the following regulations:


• Ban assault-style firearms


• Raise the minimum age to purchase firearms to 21


• Ban high capacity magazines and bump stocks


• Require universal background checks that include relevant mental health information and previous interactions with the law


• Ensure a complete universal database of those banned from buying firearms


• Close the private sale and gun show loophole that waives the necessity of background checks

Dianne Feinstein couldn’t have said it any better. And all backed by force of state arms. Dick’s has allied itself with the gun-grabbers and wannabe totalitarians. It’s joined the Dark Side and become a proud rope-seller.

“We’re staunch supporters of the 2nd Amendment,” Stack blusters, knowing very few watching him kiss DNC/Clinton apparatchik George Stephanopoulos’ ring are likely to see through the lie. “I’m a gun owner myself.”

A “staunch supporter of the Second Amendment” knows why the Framers of the Constitution considered it “necessary to the security of a free State” and also understands the offensive danger of limiting gun ownership to “sporting purposes.” Stack is now actively subverting Founding intent, and doing so to keep those pieces of silver coming in.

That may not work out the way he intends.

“Hunting has trended lower since the 1980s,” an article from last August in The Street titled “Dick’s In the Crosshairs as Gun Sales Continue to Disappoint” noted. Their shares had crashed 23% at the time.  Noting gun owner fury when gun writer Jim Zumbo ignorantly badmouthed semi-auto rifles, it will be interesting to see how gun owners react to a hunting and camping equipment retailer out there actively promoting citizen disarmament.

It’s curious that Stack doesn’t stop to think how many now elated with his concessions hate everything he stands for anyway. It’s not gun owners out there seeking to ban hunting, it’s his new “progressive friends,” happy to let him help carry their load and knowing they can always come back for “sport shooters” later.  It’s reminiscent of the story of the Cyclops Polyphemus, who promised a captured Odysseus that he would eat him last as a reward for making wine.

They nonetheless intend to eat self-serving gunkapos.

What remains to be seen is if there will be much remaining to devour, or if gun owners will deny aid and comfort to a newly-revealed enemy of the right to keep and bear arms, and let Dick’s wither to where there’s nothing left to eat. Stack has chosen to go over to the citizen disarmament camp.  Let their followers keep Dick’s doors open.

What also remains to be seen is if any gun and ammo makers publicly tell Dick’s they’re no longer interested in being suppliers. You may want to ask some of the companies at that link why they would.

As for Stack and Dick’s:

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!” –Samuel Adams

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If you believe in the mission of Oath Keepers, to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, please make a donation to support our work.  You can donate HERE.

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David Codrea’s opinions are his own. See “Who speaks for Oath Keepers?”

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