A number of prominent gun manufacturers have announced that they will no longer do business with Dick’s Sporting Goods in response to the retailer’s support for stricter gun-control legislation.
After banning the sale of assault-style weapons and raising the minimum age for purchasing a gun to 21 in the wake of February’s Parkland, Fla. school shooting, Dick’s hired three Washington, D.C. lobbyists to fight for gun control on Capitol Hill, according to federal documents obtained by the Federalist. In response, the parent company of Mossberg guns, O.F. Mossberg & Sons Inc., announced Wednesday that it would no longer sell guns to Dick’s.
“It has come to our attention that Dick’s Sporting Goods recently hired lobbyists on Capitol Hill to promote additional gun control,” CEO Iver Mossberg wrote in a press release. “Make no mistake, Mossberg is a staunch supporter of the U.S. Constitution and our Second Amendment rights, and we fully disagree with Dick’s Sporting Goods’ recent anti-Second Amendment actions.” Mossberg went on to encourage customers to “visit one of the thousands of pro-Second Amendment firearm retailers” instead of Dick’s.
That announcement came one day after MKS Supply, which manufactures Hi-Point firearms, cut ties with Dick’s.
“We believe that refusing to sell long guns to adults under age 21, while many young adults in our military are not similarly restricted, is wrong. We believe that villainizing modern sporting rifles in response to pressure from uninformed, anti-gun voices is wrong,” MKS Supply president Charles Brown wrote in the Tuesday statement. “We believe that hiring lobbyists to oppose American citizens’ freedoms secured by the Second Amendment is wrong. Dick’s Sporting Goods and Field & Stream, in purportedly doing all of these things, have demonstrated that they do not share our values. [We’re] standing by the American people by refusing any further sales to Dick’s Sporting Goods & Field & Stream.”
A third manufacturer, Springfield Armory, discontinued its relationship with Dick’s last week.