Dick's Sporting Goods says its controversial gun policy dragged down business

A Wednesday report by the Wall Street Journal revealed that Dick's Sporting Goods' move to restrict gun sales at their stores has negatively impacted their previous quarter's sales.

After February's mass murder at a Parkland, Florida, high school, Dick's restricted gun sales to those 21 years of age and up, and stopped selling "assault-style" weapons at their Field & Stream stores.

What are the specifics of Dick's numbers?

In the Wall Street Journal report, Dick's said that comparable store sales from the previous year had fallen 4 percent, and the company's same-store sales from the previous year were down 1.9 percent.

The results, according to the report, were clearly weaker than expected — especially considering that consumer confidence for the month of August was the highest that it's been in nearly two decades.

Dick's added that in addition to their new gun policies impacting sales, Under Armor's decision to sell in other stores beyond Dick's has hurt numbers.

During a call with analysts, Edward Stack, Dick's Sporting Goods' CEO, said, "Notwithstanding these challenges, the health of our core business is relatively strong, and we're confident sales trends will improve next year as these headwinds are expected to subside."

Anything else?

Conservative shareholder David Almasi — who is vice president of the National Center for Public Policy Research and represented conservative think tank’s Free Enterprise Project — voiced his opinions to Fox Business' Stuart Varney on the chain's falling sales Thursday.

"They were very unhappy that I was bringing up the fact that their sales have been down ever since they made the decision to do so in late February," said Almasi, who attended the shareholders meeting. "Ever since, they’ve been losing money."

Almasi told Varney that he was the one and only shareholder in attendance at the meeting who “stood up for gun owners and the right to shareholders who support the idea that a sporting goods store should be selling guns.

“There’s no way this chain is going to get out of it, and unfortunately, they’re going to have to ride this down,” Almasi added. “Because they’ve had three earnings calls where they’ve said this has hurt their business. But they’re not going to make any waves changing it.”

Almasi took Stack and company to task over the same issue during a June investors meeting, which you can read about here.