Quite possibly, based on a field trip I took to my local Dick’s Sporting Goods and Field & Stream stores this week.
Statement of Edward W. Stack, Chairman & CEO Dick’s Sporting Goods:
“We hope others join us in this effort to let our kids know that their pleas are being taken seriously. Some will say these steps can’t guarantee tragedies like Parkland will never happen again. They may be correct – but if common sense reform is enacted and even one life is saved, it will have been worth it.
We deeply believe that this country’s most precious gift is our children. They are our future. We must keep them safe.”
In this statement, Stack not only said, “We will no longer sell assault-style rifles, also referred to as modern sporting rifles. We had already removed them from all DICK’S stores after the Sandy Hook massacre, but we will now remove them from sale at all 35 Field & Stream stores.” He also wrote, “At the same time, we implore our elected officials to enact common sense gun reform and pass the following regulations,” one of them being “ban assault-style firearms.”
I wonder what those who flock to Dick’s and Field & Stream stores to support Stack’s taking the moral high ground will think if they see where Stack’s bottom line actually is. Consider not only that BOTH Dick’s and Field & Stream stores continue to sell ammunition for assault-style rifles, THEY SELL FIELD & STREAM BRANDED ammunition for assault-style rifles.
If your tastes run to the AK-47 platform rather than the AR-15, you can opt for the 7.62×39 cartridge with its comparatively large (122 grain) and slow (2,330 feet per second) bullet.
In his statement, Stack not only went after assault rifles, he also declared, “We will no longer sell high capacity magazines,” and further called for the government to “Ban high capacity magazines.”
Perhaps he means AFTER Field & Stream stores sell out of all of the many, many, many semi-auto handguns they stock which have magazines holding 11+ rounds. So many choices just in the Glock case. G17 (17 rounds), G19 (15 rounds), G19X (17 rounds), and G34 (17 rounds). Not to mention all the high capacity semi-auto pistols by Beretta, Heckler & Koch, Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Sig Sauer, and Springfield Armory in the other cases.
Considering that many times more Americans are killed and injured by people wielding handguns than assault rifles, perhaps Stack ought to rethink his stores’ complicity in this bloodshed instead of profiting off of it by selling handgun ammo by the truckload.
Stack is also good with selling SNIPER RIFLES to the American public.
How ironic that Field & Stream stores sell t-shirts for Daniel Defense, but not their main product.
And if Stack succeeds in getting a government ban on assault rifles, will Field & Stream stores have a run on their Under Armour “Molon Labe” shirts?
Too rich.
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Reblogged this on .
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Reblogged this on Custom Tactical Services and commented:
Good point.
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The entire gun control movement is hypocritical to me because they are wanting to take away my 2A rights while demanding I allow there 1A rights to spread there message. Of course expecting the left to admit that is an exercise in futility.
Molon Labe!
Keep your powder dry and your faith in God.
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Aw, who needs the AR? Sell me the Seung-Hui Cho Specials.
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(Glock 19 and Walther P22).
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To be fair, there are a boatload of “traditional” rifles that shoot the .223 cartridge. Just did a quick search.
https://www.cheaperthandirt.com/category/firearms/rifles/223-remington.do
That’s the problem with this current wave of misinformation/ignorance about the 223 round. There are a host of hot rounds in the 22 caliber that have long been used for long range flat shooting of “varmints” and other small game, whereas the popular but ignorant culture entirely conflates these rounds with assault rifles. 220 Swift (the Mother of all hot 22 cal cartridges), 22/250 Remington, 225 Winchester, 22 Hornet, etc. My stepdad picked up a Savage rifle (340?) back in the sixties that was chambered in 225 Winchester. Hotter round than the 5.56×45. We handloaded it to about 3400-3500 fps with a Sierra 52 gr HPBT bullet. It shot dead flat to around 200 yards and put The Fear into the ground hogs in Western NY.
Even a few bolt action 7.62×39’s at Cheaper Than Dirt. Probably a pretty good deer round at moderate range, a little slower than a 30-30.
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But of all the .223 rounds or 7.62 rounds shot, how many go through bolt action guns as opposed to semi-auto assault rifles?
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Oh, I am sure most go through ARs. I guess my point was that these high velocity 223 rounds have a long history before the military discovered them and still have rifles chambered for them that are not black. The recent article(s) attesting to the devastating injury capability of “high velocity rifle rounds” makes it sound like this round type was invented to maim people when in fact it has long been used to kill game at long range., the purpose of the round was to travel really fast and flat rather than having a low velocity trajectory with a pronounced arc.
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Great points, yes.
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I find it interesting and disingenuous when gun grabbers call regular sized mags “high capacity.”
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If my Subaru gas tank held 30 gallons, I would call it “high capacity”. Relative term.
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Unless my Subaru was designed with a 30 gallon gas tank in which case it would be “standard capacity” just as the AR15 was designed with a 30 round magazine. There are higher capacity magazines as well as lower capacity, but 30 rounds is standard.
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Indeed, designed with a 30 rd magazine as a military tactical rifle. If deranged civilians keep shooting up schools, theatres, and churches with these rifles, its inevitable that we will all pay a regulatory price. We let just about anyone drive. We don’t let just about anyone drive an eighteen-wheeler.
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The “high-capacity mags are inherently more ‘something'” claim may not hold up in practice. Kleck recently did an analysis of mass shooting events and many of the higher total round count events, given the time involved before intervention and frequent use of multiple weapons, didn’t _require_ the use of higher cap mags. Nor in many cases even a semi-auto’s higher potential rate of fire.
we’ve already seen the “lethality” difference between revolvers and semi-auto handguns is not what we’d expect in practice.
The data that would be useful would be to break down the actual rounds fired in each phase of the event, and the time between each, to see if the same approximate number of shots would be possible with any other given weapon system.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1525107116674926
Putting a spare gas tank in your pick-up doesn’t make it an 18-wheeler.
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I haven’t looked at the Kleck study recently, but one issue that was raised is one you hint at Matthew, which is whether the rate of fire is fast to start then tails off. If you look at total rounds per total minutes of incident, that will produce a slower overall rate of fire on average.
The other argument that may make sense is, sure, you can bring 9 10 round magazines instead of 3 30 round magazines, but more magazine changes might make for more mechanical failures. AND if we go the route of armed responses to active shooters, then every magazine change represents an opportunity.
I don’t personally believe banning ARs or LCMs will dramatically change the death/injury rate, but these are arguments that should be addressed in response to those who do.
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What David said.
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David,
I agree. Though the burden of actually supporting those arguments is on those raising them.
An unsupported but reasonable response to the “tailing off” factor would be to note that as targets in the immediate area flee or die they become fewer and harder to hit, and moving to pursue them or to engage new groups can eat up time that would allow reloading in comparative safety (the potential unarmed interveners in the immediate area having been injured or fled). I looked at Port Arthur and even in his first engagement at the Cafe he used one AR mag at very close range firing from the hip and still only had a rate of fire of 1-2 shots a second (29 shots in 15-30 sec). After that it dropped as the crowd outside had started to flee.
Magazine mechanical failures are a potential issue, but, given most of these shooters plan and practice, their testing mags for reliability, just as you or I would for carry magazines, would make that something to be hoped for, not reliable enough to form a basis of policy. And, as Kleck noted, that opportunity doesn’t seem to have been used often in the past. Though the “Run, Hide, Fight” training might change that, as air passenger reactions to hijacking have similarly gone from “comply” to “fight to the death” now that the stakes are known. In any event, the common practice of having a second gun lessens that window.
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Interesting article.
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/off-duty/gearscout/2018/01/23/this-drum-mag-could-be-the-answer-for-marine-iar-gunners-who-need-to-pour-on-the-fire/
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Just reading through part of Kleck’s study. I doubt banning HCM’s would make much difference, actually. That 60 rd Magpul makes sense in suppressing fire when someone is shooting back–maybe in the case of that guy who shot all the cops in Dallas. In a school full of unarmed kids, a bunch of smaller mags work just fine. So to speak.
To me, this issue is more symbolic than real. But symbolism works both ways: these LCMs look evil to gun controllers. Do they empower mass shooters psychologically as well? I recently posted that question to Scott Lilienfeld, who I was conversing with on another topic but he said it wasn’t his field.
I don’t have a problem with drawing lines in the sand somewhere. The 1934 NFA has not been a huge burden on gun owners. I just wish those lines made some quantifiable sense rather than being all show and political theatre.
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Not sure if they psychologically empower them, 30 rd mags aren’t new to the market nor to mass shootings after all. I do think the “Columbine effect” is in play though. If you are going to get the new “high score” you need to maximize potential lethality, even if in practice equipment choices have less to do with that than target selection.
For example, the Vegas shooter set up his situation so the bump stocks and magazine capacities were almost secondary to the final toll. He picked a concealed, elevated position firing down into a confined crowd.
Shooting at ground level inside a building the crowd nearest you provides human cover for those in the the back to flee away from where they know you are. In Vegas every one of his targets was effectively in the open and unaware of which way safety lay, in many cases unaware of what was happening at all so the herd panic effect didn’t set in for vital seconds. Even once aware, they were so densely packed and constrained from escape by the venue perimeter that a “miss” had a high chance of hitting the person next to them. Some reports mention his having the rifles on “tripods,” if so, it would require little effort to keep all the rounds in the beaten zone without even needing to aim.
The copy-cat effect is what I fear, as that festers and new methods come to awareness, say bombing, chasing “means control” will become less relevant. If the Austin bomber had different intentions, even his marginal skill could have easily replicated the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in any number of packed Austin venues.
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[…] it was Ed Stack of Dick’s, candidate for biggest hypocrite in America. Now we have Citigroup’s statement regarding restrictions on the sales practices of its […]
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