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Getting Rid of Guns Really Cost Dick’s Sporting Goods

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By Daily Wire. Dick’s Sporting Goods is warning investors that its decision to remove certain “assault-style” weapons from its Field & Stream stores cost it dearly and may limit its future gains.

The sporting goods retailer was forced to confront angry shareholders late last week after its stocks tanked more than 4.5% and financial conglomerate J.P. Morgan Chase downgraded Dick’s shares, saying the company was “overweight.”

“Gross margin-driven upside appears less probable given 3Q’s performance, changing comparisons, and rising inventory levels,” an analyst for J.P. Morgan told CNBC. The same analyst noted that same-store sales for Dick’s outlets are expected to grow less than 1% even as the company’s inventory rises.

“The analyst pointed out that Dick’s same-store sales growth for 2019 is expected to be less than 1 percent after averaging 2.1 percent between 2011 and 2015. He also noted that while the company’s 25 percent Black Friday store discount will help boost sales, it will not boost margins,” the analyst continued. “Inventory levels, meanwhile, rose 1 percent in the third quarter after falling 5 percent in the first half of 2018 with inventory days estimated to return back to 2015-2017 levels.” (Read more from “Getting Rid of Guns Really Cost Dick’s Sporting Goods” HERE)

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Dick’s Sporting Goods Ban on Some Guns Dented Sales. but Weaker Gun Market Also Took Toll

By USA Today. While a decision to stop selling assault-style weapons in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting dented its overall sales, Dick’s Sporting Goods says that the dip reflects a broader weakness in the world of firearms

The nation’s largest seller of sporting goods reported that consolidated same-store sales were down 3.9% in the third quarter, due in part to double-digit declines in the areas of electronics and hunting.

The weak numbers come in the wake of the Dick’s decision in February to not only halt assault weapon sales, but to no longer sell guns to people under the age of 21 in response to the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 dead.

But broader trends also appear to have had an impact. After breaking records each of the last three years, the number of background checks conducted by the FBI for gun purchases this Black Friday was down 10 percent from that day last year. (Read more from “Dick’s Sporting Goods Ban on Some Guns Dented Sales. but Weaker Gun Market Also Took Toll” HERE)

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Harvard Landlord Tells Domestic Violence Survivor to Move out Over Her Firearms

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This story is just infuriating. It also should remind all conservative that it’s best to stick with your tribe. Leyla Pirnie is a graduate student at Harvard, where her terrible roommates searched her room while she was away because they felt she might have firearms. What gave her away? Well, she wore a Make America Great Again hat, and she’s from Alabama. It may surprise some liberals, but Democrats do livein Alabama. Also, they searched her room, invaded her privacy, and then ratted her out to their landlord over he legally owned firearms, which she obtained after surviving an abusive relationship. How dare she take steps to ensure her safety? . . .

“Since it’s clear that Leyla wants to keep her firearms, it would be best for all parties if she finds another place to live,” Dave Lewis, president of Avid Management, said in an email to the household obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The request that the student, Leyla Pirnie, move out came after her roommates searched her room while she was not home and found her firearms. That prompted one of the roommates to email Lewis requesting he verify that Pirnie was in compliance with applicable firearms laws.

“We discussed with Leyla that all of us are uncomfortable with having firearms in the house, and that their presence causes anxiety and deprives us of the quiet enjoyment of the premise to which we are entitled,” the roommate wrote to Lewis.

(Read more from “Harvard Landlord Tells Domestic Violence Survivor to Move out Over Her Firearms” HERE)

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Liberal Gun Reporter Reveals Something Terrifying About Gun Control Solutions

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. . .Yet, there are some reporters writing for left-leaning publications, like The Guardian, who are actually very good on this issue. Yeah, believe it or not, the Left has a couple, not many of course; dedicated reporters who follow the gun beat. The Washington Free Beacon’s Stephen Gutowski is one of the best for conservative media. Lois Beckett is one on the Left who you should follow. You may not always agree, but she’s fair. She wrote in The New York Times about the myth that the 1994 assault weapons ban was effective, while also dispelling the liberal lie that banning AR-15 rifles would reduce crime. Handguns commit the most gun violence, but there is zero political support for that initiative. . .

Yet, Beckett is more concerned about the media’s lack of coverage in the solutions to these types of horrible events. Gutowski has also commented about the media’s poor grasp of gun policy is probably because there is no dedicated staff tasked with reporting and researching at major newspapers and news organizations. Beckett added that Long could have been subjected to a gun violence restraining order law, which was passed in California, but no one knows it exists, not even law enforcement. . .

Beckett added that these horrible incidents never happen out of the blue. No one ever snaps; there is a trail of red flags. She also said that there are research-driven solutions that gun rights advocates do support, which coupled with some of the ones on the Left, that don’t veer into ‘take all the guns’ territory, there has to be solutions both sides can agree on to at least provide some framework to prevent more tragedies like Sandy Hook, Borderline, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas. For now, the aftermath is the same: mourn the dead for two seconds, blame the NRA, blame Trump, recycle straight trash reporting on gun laws that have been on the books since Kennedy was in office, and repeat. I don’t mind having conservations with pro-gun control, folks, but when they say I’m evil for supporting the Second Amendment, the conversation ends…quickly. (Read more from “Liberal Gun Reporter Reveals Something Terrifying About Gun Control Solutions” HERE)

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That Was Fast: New York Lawmakers Want to Use Social Media History to Block People From Gun Ownership

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Some New York City lawmakers want to use people’s social media history to take away their Second Amendment rights.

According to reports, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and state Senator Kevin Palmer are drafting legislation that would give law enforcement the ability to comb through up to three years of a person’s social media and internet history before the person could purchase a firearm.

“If the police department is reviewing a gang assault, a robbery, some type of shooting, they go and do a social media profile investigation,” Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said of the proposal on a recent radio appearance. “A three-year review of a social media profile would give an easy profile of a person who is not suitable to hold and possess a firearm.”

Wow. If you thought the “no-fly, no buy” idea of stripping the Second Amendment rights of people on an arbitrary list with no due process was an unconstitutional farce, just wait until this becomes the next big gun trend.

The anti-gun crowd is sure to cling to it because it seems to directly address the details of the most recent gun crime — just like stripping rights from people on the “no-fly” list became the gun-grab proposal du jour after the Orlando shooting. However, it doesn’t hold up.

Yes, there are different forms of unprotected speech, like fighting words and direct incitement of violence, and there are crimes and conditions that can and should bar someone from gun ownership, but that’s not what we’re talking about.

What we’re really talking about is policing things that offend others under the vague premise of fighting “hate” with government force. Like “assault weapon,” there’s no real definition of “hate speech,” and the term never seems to stop evolving in a society where every form of legitimate right-leaning political disagreement is quickly labeled as some “hate” or prejudiced “ism.”

What’s to stop those whose real end game is to ban all private gun ownership from calling pro-life posts “hate speech” against women or pro-traditional marriage posts “hate speech” against gays? They might even start considering anti-Israel BDS propaganda anti-Semitic “hate speech” if it keeps guns out of private citizens’ hands. Who knows? Such is the problem with using subjective, arbitrary standards to take away constitutional rights.

But saying things that hurt people’s feelings on social media isn’t a crime in the United States — and under the First Amendment, it should never be. And it certainly shouldn’t mean that citizens lose a constitutional liberty over it.

There’s an old adage that says “bad facts make bad law.” It’s very true, and fact-free frenzies driven by gun-related atrocities make even worse law. (For more from the author of “That Was Fast: New York Lawmakers Want to Use Social Media History to Block People From Gun Ownership” please click HERE)

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McCaskill: I Want James O’Keefe Investigated…Because He Exposed My Anti-Gun Views and I Want to Be Re-Elected

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Well, Project Veritas has earned the ire of Democrats again. The James O‘Keefe outlet exposed Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO)…for being a typical anti-gun Democrat, who also indirectly receives the support of Planned Parenthood. Two positions and an affiliation that you don’t want engraved on you as a red state Democrat, especially one in a state where Trump destroyed Clinton in 2016.

The video isn’t groundbreaking in the sense of O’Keefe’s other work, like taking down ACORN, but it exposed that so-called conservative Democrats could be, well, typical Democrats. Still, anytime a Democrat is exposed is a good day, so hats off to Mr. O’Keefe. The McCaskill campaign now has a no-record law in effect at events (via Free Beacon):

RECORDING NOTICE: By entering this area, you agree to not record, reproduce, transmit or stream from the event site, offices, work spaces, or any of their surroundings, in any manner or by any means whatsoever, any portion of, or the entirety of, any Missouri Democratic Party events or general activities in or surrounding the Missouri Democratic Party offices and work spaces, including making any photographs, videotapes or any other records, in the absence of the specific and advance written permission of the Missouri Democratic Party. The Missouri Democratic Party retains the exclusive copyright to all material that may be distributed at the event or produced or maintained in its offices, work spaces, or any of their surroundings unless otherwise noted, and to any and all photographs, videotapes and other recordings of any kind of all Missouri Democratic Party events, general activities, office spaces, and surroundings.

[…]

Banning recording has been just part of McCaskill’s response to the Project Veritas video. Her campaign has said that “fraud has been committed” against it and called on her Republican opponent Josh Hawley, who also happens to be Missouri’s attorney general, to launch a special investigation into the Project Veritas videos.

(Read more from “McCaskill: I Want James O’Keefe Investigated…Because He Exposed My Anti-Gun Views and I Want to Be Re-Elected” HERE)

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Sorry, Anti-Gunners, Your Base of Support for Gun Control Is Being Chipped Away Again

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Wait—isn’t 60 percent a solid number showing support for stricter gun laws? Yes, but support is dropping and my guess, like what happened after Sandy Hook, is that support will continue to drop until it returns to pre-Newtown levels: 47 percent. And that was with a Democratic president at the helm.

Sandy Hook was a tragic shooting that shook the nation, as did the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, which launched a renewed wave of anti-gun activism. Former students David Hogg, Cameron Kasky, and Emma Gonzalez formed the face of their new movement. Support for gun control reached 25-year highs, but Stephen Gutowski of the Washington Free Beacon noted that support is dropping:

The Gallup poll of 1,019 adults, conducted between Oct. 1 and 10, found 61 percent of respondents support making gun laws stricter. That’s down 6 points from when Gallup asked the same question between March 1 and 8. At the same time support for the idea that gun laws should be kept the same increased from 28 percent to 30 percent and support for the idea they should be made less strict doubled from 4 percent to 8 percent.

Overall, opposition to stricter gun-control laws moved from 32 percent to 38 percent. Two percent of respondents said they had no opinion. (It’s unclear why Gallup’s raw numbers add up to more than 100 percent but the discrepancy is likely the result of rounding.)

Support for stricter gun control has wavered significantly over the last few decades. When Gallup first asked about it in 1990, support for stricter laws came in at an all-time-high of 78 percent. In 2012, support hit an all-time-low of 43 percent. Support for stricter laws has trended back up since 2012, but this month’s numbers may indicate it is receding once again.

(Read more from “Sorry, Anti-Gunners, Your Base of Support for Gun Control Is Being Chipped Away Again” HERE)

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What This ‘Study’ Claiming You’re More Likely to Be Shot by a Cop in Pro-Gun States Doesn’t Mention

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Researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Northeastern University came together to study the correlation between states’ gun ownership and officer-involved shootings. The researchers published their findings in the Journal for Urban Health. Their grandiose takeaway: if you live in a state with “looser” gun laws – AKA you’re allowed to utilize your Second Amendment rights – then you’re more likely to be shot by police officers.

Their abstract has three main points that are rather troubling:

Although numerous studies have examined how rates of police killings of civilians are related to several ecologic determinants of these events, no peer-reviewed study to date has examined the extent to which variation in police involved firearm homicides is explained by firearm prevalence while adjusting for violent crime rates (the most well-established ecologic factor associated with fatal police shootings).

What do researches consider a “violent” crime? Are they using the FBI’s definition which includes “murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault”? . . .

The researchers are using data from the Washington Post, a liberal, anti-gun publication. You know what that means: they’re going to cherry pick which “data” they include. And you know the data they store is going to fit their gun control narrative. (Read more from “What This ‘Study’ Claiming You’re More Likely to Be Shot by a Cop in Pro-Gun States Doesn’t Mention” HERE)

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March for Our Lives Co-Founder Quits, Has Regrets About Things He Said

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March For Our Lives co-founder Cameron Kasky told Fox News radio on Wednesday that he has left the organization that he helped create and that he has regrets about some of the things that he has said since he entered the public spotlight.

Kasky told Fox News Radio’s Guy Benson and Marie Harf: “I’m very regretful of a lot of the mistakes that I’ve made along the way.”

“One of the things I never really did was watch myself,” Kasky said. “If I was on a screen I kind of tried to run away from it. I’m not entirely sure why. But, looking back on that it’s like you said, you touched off on this very well in the intro, I’m not going to kick myself for it because I’m 17. Despite the fact that I thought I did at the time, I don’t know everything.” . . .

Kasky said he would redo the conversation that he had with Rubio and that he has plans to meet with him next month where he’ll bring up how he spoke to him during the town hall event.

“This summer when March For Our Lives went on the summer tour that we embarked on, I met that person in Texas who’s got that semi-automatic weapon because that’s how they like to protect their family,” Kasky continued. “I met the 50-some-odd-percent of woman who are pro-life, even though I thought it was preposterous that a woman could be pro-life and not pro-choice at the time. I learned that a lot of our issues politically come from a lack of understanding of other perspectives and also the fact that so often young conservatives and young liberals will go into debate, like I said earlier, trying to beat the other one as opposed to come to an agreement.” (Read more from “March for Our Lives Co-Founder Quits, Has Regrets About Things He Said” HERE)

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Stanford Doctors: It’s Time to Ban All Semi-Automatic Firearms

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Over 2,500 medical students and healthcare professionals at over 30 leading medical centers held events on Monday urging the public to treat “gun violence” as a public health crisis, The Mercury News reported.

The events were part of Scrubs Addressing the Firearms Epidemic (SAFE), a non-partisan action co-founded by Stanford’s Professor of Medicine Dr. Dean Winslow, a Republican, and fourth year medical student Sarabeth Spitzer, a Democrat. Winslow is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and flight surgeon who was deployed six times to Iraq and Afghanistan.

At Stanford, healthcare professionals spoke about the health risk associated with guns, the gun epidemic and trauma care. At the University of California San Francisco, two panels discussed California’s firearms laws and recommended ways to talk to patients about firearm access, safety, and risk. . .

“If this were any other public health problem, we wouldn’t stand for it. But it’s such a hot button political topic that we lose the ability to talk about it,” Spain told The Mercury News. “We’ve been a little slow. We’re politically adverse. Our mission is education and research. This is advocacy.”

Medical associations and groups have become involved in the gun control debate. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians and the American Medical Association are just a few who have thrown their hat into the arena. (Read more from “Stanford Doctors: It’s Time to Ban All Semi-Automatic Firearms” HERE)

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Study: Gun Owners More Likely to Utilize Their Constitutional Rights Than Non-Gun Owners

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. . .A new study by the University of Kansas has illuminated yet another connection between guns and politics. And this one may have people who lean right politically cheering.

According to the study, American gun owners are in the thick of it politically, being more active than their non-gun-owning counterparts across the board. This includes “not only in voting but in donating money to candidates and contacting elected officials.”

The Huffington Post reported other areas of increased engagement by gun owners. They included things such as registering to vote, voting in presidential elections, signing petitions, and posting on social media about guns. . .

NBC News reported in June 2015 that only about one-third of Americans actually owned one or more guns, according to study data published in Injury Prevention. Despite gun sales surges during the President Barack Obama years, a Pew Research Center Study from June 2017 reflects a similar gun ownership number — 30 percent of adults are gun owners.

But even though non-gun owners clearly outnumber gun owners, being more engaged politically matters. Political science graduate student Abbie Vegter explained, “Part of the reason majority opinions on gun control legislation aren’t turning into policy is that gun owners are a very strong political group who hold a lot of weight and hold a lot of influence despite being a minority in American politics.” (Read more from “Study: Gun Owners More Likely to Utilize Their Constitutional Rights Than Non-Gun Owners” HERE)

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