Dick’s Sporting Goods may remove all hunting gear from stores after implementing new gun policies

Dick's Sporting Goods is considering removing all hunting gear from each of its 732 stores, according to company CEO Edward Stack.

What are the details?

During a Thursday conference call, Stack discussed the retailer's August decision to remove all hunting equipment and products from 10 stores where they were underperforming.

In its place, Dick's Sporting Goods put an assortment of items in categories like baseball, soccer, outerwear, and licensed products.

"Though it's too early to discuss performance, we're optimistic these changes will better serve the athletes in these communities," Stack said during the call. "We'll have to wait and see how the 10-store test does."

Dick's made headlines in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre on Feb. 14 in Parkland, Florida, in which a mass killer took the lives of 17 people, and injured many more.

In direct response to the mass killing, Dick's opted to remove all "assault-style" weapons from its stores and put other gun restrictions in place, such as ending the sale of high capacity magazines.

The company also revealed it would no longer sell rifles and shotguns to any customer under the age of 21.

What happened next?

By August, Stack admitted that the new policy had hurt the store's bottom line.

“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,” said during the August conference call.

During Thursday's call, however, Stack insisted that the company would benefit in the long run by optimizing its assortment of sports-related offerings and focus more on athletes and their individualized sports needs.

Stack also revealed that third-quarter net sales had declined 4.5 percent to $1.86 billion.

Lee Belitsky, the store's chief financial officer, said, "Specific to hunt, in addition to the strategic decisions made regarding firearms earlier this year, sales continue to be negatively impacted by double-digit declines in hunt and electronics.

"The broader industry has decelerated and remains weak, as evidenced by most recent national background check data [for purchases of firearms]," he added.