Fred Meyer stores just caved to 2nd. amendment haters

[dajowi]

It was just announced that the Fred Meyer chain of stores will no longer sell guns or ammo. Wimps!

[JERRYS.]

all the stores that enact anti 2nd Amendment policies will see the same guys in town coming to the store with their wives. in other words, they might lose a few customers but eventually even the bravado speakers will be back because of their prices.

[Pahoo]

Not going to name one of our local chain of stores but the a gun counter friend of mine was given a sign to hang up in front of the glass case and all the Black-Guns were removed to the storage vault. That lasted about a week as they were getting too many complaints from some of their customers. They are all back to their original show case. Also, I understand that Dicks has gotten a lot of complaints as well. This is the second time, at our location, that Dicks has done this and my wallet says that it will be the last. .....

What we see happening which was not expected is shooting/hunting folks who don't care about black-guns, are protesting the rational and pointless action. ...

Be Safe !!!

[Tom Servo]

This is the second time, at our location, that Dicks has done this

That was a national thing, and it lasted for all of three weeks. When all other retailers were sold out of AR-15's, Dick's started running Sunday circulars with them. I guess they "found" some inventory lying around in the warehouse.

That's the thing with all of this. It's nothing more than virtue signaling to appease a rabble on social media, most of whom aren't even customers.

[In The Ten Ring]

"Virtue signaling," you know, I don't think I'd be very good at that.

I'm torn by this sort of thing, in one way, yes, they are acting silly, as if a tool of any kind is "evil."

In another, they are courting people that hate freedom, most of whom would never buy a gun anyway.

In yet another way, they are free to do whatever they want with their business.

I do think it's cowardly, "virtue signaling" is the proper term.

[Jim Watson]

I hope the local stores do well as the chains knuckle under.

[rickyrick]

Gun owners are being lumped in with racists, bigots, white supremacy, Russian colluders and all the other unsavory going’s on... what did everyone think was going to happen?

[44 AMP]

Don't worry, rickyrick, even with all the other deplorables, there's still plenty of room in the basket for us...

I don't think the Fred Meyer closest to me has had firearms for decades. It's a dept. /grocery store. Lots of stores that used to, stopped selling pistols a long time ago. Payless sold pistols & other firearms in 1976. Bi-Mart dropped pistols in the 80s, but still sells long guns and reloading supplies.

WalMart has a policy that if the product doesn't do X amount of sales it goes away. 4 Walmarts within easy driving distance of me, ONE sells guns, the others don't.

I don't automatically assume that when a big store chain stops selling guns that its an anti-2nd Amendment move. It might be, of course, but it might just be something as simple as they aren't making much profit on them, and would make more profit on something else.

However,, ANNOUNCING that you are no longer selling guns, or no longer selling assault weapons/black guns/ evil weapons of mass murder/semiautos (pick one)...in today's media driven furor over such things DOES put you in the political realm.

If you're a big store, and your profits on guns are minimal, or less, what are you really losing?? A few of us old gun cranks not shopping there anymore?? Remember, unless the Mrs. is both dedicated, and understands the cause, she'll still go there for milk, eggs, and sundries.

[rickyrick]

I haven’t seen a firearm or ammunition at Freddy’s but the bimart I use has pistols. Bought lots of “AR ammo” there too lol.
I’ll still shop at Fred Meyer because I order online, drive up later and they put it all in my car. Never went there for gun stuff.

[jdc1244]

How exactly can a private company be ‘anti-Second Amendment’? When did the Supreme Court rule that a private company which decides to stop selling guns has ‘violated’ the Second Amendment?

This is the Law and Civil Rights forum – everyone posting here should know that as a fact of law the Second Amendment concerns solely the relationship between government and those governed, not between or among private persons and organizations, such as retail stores.

Is the chain ‘anti-gun’? Perhaps. But the chain cites decreasing gun sales overall, which we know to be true; we have no reason to not believe this isn’t an appropriate business decision having nothing to do with being ‘anti-gun.’

[rickyrick]

I do believe that it is Fred Meyer’s right to sell whatever they want.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Fred's is part of Kroger, IIRC. They only sold guns in Alaska. Kroger is not gun friendly as they were on the 21 year old band wagon and seemed to have banned certain gun periodicals.

[Nathan]

Thank goodness there is still rural king and they still have 300 blackout for internet pricing. I'm going to buy more Tuesday!

Funny Kroger is viewed as anti-gun. They still have a full selection of gun rags and have never hung a no carry sign as far as I know. I have seen a couple of people open carry locally. Hmm?

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Well, they went for 21 ban and it's reported they are removing the magazines. We will see.

https://www.outdoorhub.com/news/2018...ail-locations/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kroger-...tance-on-guns/

[In The Ten Ring]

If the local Krogers bans gun magazines, they might as well close up their magazine stand.

[TDL]

How exactly can a private company be ‘anti-Second Amendment’? When did the Supreme Court rule that a private company which decides to stop selling guns has ‘violated’ the Second Amendment?

by going well beyond their private policies and advocating for more government controls on sales -- which for example Dicks has done.

If facebook adjusts their own policies on speech it does not mean they are advocating reduced first amendment rights -- but if they say the government needs to institute new laws reducing what all outlets can do, or chilling by increasing proactive self policing backed by government laws/regulations -- that is adovacy against current first amendment liberties.

dicks has made corporate policy statements calling for new legislation increasing gun control.

[Tom Servo]

If the local Krogers bans gun magazines, they might as well close up their magazine stand.

Would anyone really notice? I doubt sales of gun magazines represent a significant source of income for them.

[TDL]

Would anyone really notice? I doubt sales of gun magazines represent a significant source of income for them.

The only thing at risk is not the sales per se of an item such as a magazine specializing in hunting or firearms.

some portion of all retail stores market share comes from loyalty to the store. Also magazines are essentially infinite markup. Magazines are essentially given away at to the stores by the publishers. Whereas dry goods like pasta, sugar, cereal in grocery stores are typically very low markup, and perishables slightly higher markup up, but not much higher net sales due to perishables having to e tossed out.

A supermarket in a situation where there is little completion is not going to take a hit more than the loss of that particular item's profit. But a grocer, or retail outlet in an areas where there is competition could lose some good will and therefore more than the item.

I personally could care little if for example Dicks decided not to sell a class of firearm in their store. I care a lot that they have advocated caning federal laws to further restrict the second amendment. So in my case they are losing more than the sale of the items they specifically targeted

[Glenn E. Meyer]

One needs a well done investigation to see if removing magazines from a story has any impact. When Playboy left the supermarkets, I didn't see any of them fold.

It is all well and good to threaten a major change in patronage. Did Walmart dropping handguns dent their sales?

Local restaurants in town have put up lots of NO OPEN CARRY signs. I see no change in patronage. Asked a manager or two - they said after they went up they had a couple of folks waving their arms and that was it.

[TDL]

No one is saying they are going to fold. Only that the effect is obviously not limited to the items in question.

Everytown organizers of these boycott threats were not telling Dicks for example that Everytown members or followers will go elsewhere for their AR-15 purchase, are they?

They were clearly saying Dicks' store policy on AR-15 at F&S will cost Dicks' purchase of yoga pants and kayaks.

This is obviously for some indeterminate and probably indeterminable number of people -- but at least some -- both sides, about more than the specific items in question.

Jane doe of Everytown follower was threatening not to buy her kids soccer ball, and a certain number Jane Smith gun owner is now not going to buy paper targets, gun cleaning supplies or a gun safe at dicks.

[Tom Servo]

They were clearly saying Dicks' store policy on AR-15 at F&S will cost Dicks' purchase of yoga pants and kayaks.

But will it? How many Everytown members shopped at Dick's in the first place?

That's the problem with these flavor of the week social media outrages. Companies like Dick's chase their tails to appease mobs of people who may not even be their customers.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

The economic outcomes should be clear. If they are not significant, you are better off not posturing about boycotts.

How many businesses have had significant economic impacts with their signs banning open carry and concealed carry in TX? I haven't seen one story suggesting that this has happened. There are plenty of local economists who would have picked it up.

[spacemanspiff]

Did anyone ever see these retailers voicing their support of the 2nd Amendment when they began to sell guns/ammo? No, it was purely a financial move. They believed they could make a little more profits. And now that fewer customers are buying guns/ammo from some of these retailers, this is an opportune moment for them to jump on a bandwagon and make the rabblerouses happy for a moment.

Personally, whether or not these retail chain stores sell guns or ammo matters not to me. The only time that I saw any decent deals was when our Walmarts had ordered too much 5.56 ammo. I still haven't seen them selling bricks of 22lr ammo, and if they do, its still not down to the prices they were at before the shortages some years back.

What it does mean though is that your local gunstores might see a slight increase in business. No harm in supporting local businesses.

[rickyrick]

The economic outcomes should be clear. If they are not significant, you are better off not posturing about boycotts.

Yeah gun owners threatening to boycott has become quite humorous to the anti-gun crowd.


The decision to stop selling these items at stores is very low risk. Any financial loss is minuscule. Announcing that they are doing it is virtue signaling.
They also are limiting the chances that a future mass shooter will have bought their gun or ammunition at their store, which could be costly in reputation and lost sales. In this day the entire supply chain gets litigated from the manufacturer down to the last person who owned the gun before the shooter. While mostly unsuccessful, defending those suits can’t be cheap.

[FrankenMauser]

As mentioned, Kroger arguably didn't really even sell firearms.
Very few other stores carried ammunition.

In my region, we have Fred Meyer stores and Smith's Marketplace stores (same thing - different brand loyalty). Only one of them carried ammunition. Very little of it was ever sold, even when "on sale"; because it was still expensive, it was nearly impossible to get an employee to unlock the case, and you were escorted to a register for checkout once the ammunition was out of the case.
Eliminating ammunition sales won't hurt them. If anything, it will allow greater variety of other sporting goods to be carried that will probably sell better; and employees won't be delayed for 15 minutes because Bubba Joe needed a single box of "'them Remington .30-30s."


There isn't much change. It's just political appeasement.