Legendary shotgun maker Mossberg is following in the footsteps of Springfield Armory and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) by severing ties with Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Breitbart News reported that Springfield Armory severed ties with Dick’s on May 3, after it became known that the sporting goods chain had hired lobbyists to push gun control to Congress. The next day, NSSF canceled Dick’s membership in their organization, thereby expelling the business.
NSSF announced:
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industries, Board of Governors today unanimously voted to expel Dick’s Sporting Goods from membership for conduct detrimental to the best interests of the Foundation.
Dick’s Sporting Goods recently hired a Washington D.C.-based government affairs firm, for “[l]obbying related to gun control.” Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Edward W. Stack announced earlier this year the retail chain would end sales of modern sporting rifles, voluntarily raise the age to 21 to purchase firearms in their stores and called for more restrictive legislation. Dick’s later announced they would destroy the remaining modern sporting rifle inventory. NSSF responded that business decisions should be individually made, but was nonetheless disappointed and the decision does not reflect the reality of the vast majority of law-abiding gun owners.
Now Mossberg is following suit. They announced the end of their relationship with Dick’s via Facebook:
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.