O.F. Mossberg & Sons, Inc. has ended their relationship with Dick’s Sporting Goods and it’s subsidiary Field and Stream. This action was caused by the company’s hiring of gun control lobbyists last month. Mossberg issued a press release Wednesday explaining the decision.

Effective immediately, O.F. Mossberg & Sons will not accept any future orders from Dick’s Sporting Goods or Field &
Stream, and is in the process of evaluating current contractual agreements.

“It has come to our attention that Dick’s Sporting Goods recently hired lobbyists on Capitol Hill to promote additional gun control,” said Iver Mossberg, Chief Executive Officer of O.F. Mossberg & Sons. “Make no mistake, Mossberg is a staunch supporter of the U.S. Constitution and our Second Amendment rights, and we fully disagree with Dick’s Sporting Goods’ recent anti-Second Amendment actions.”

O.F. Mossberg & Sons, Inc. is the oldest family-owned firearms manufacturer in America, founded in 1919. Mossberg is also the largest pump-action shotgun manufacturer in the world. MKS Supply, a manufacturer of Hi-Point firearms, announced their decision to do the same just the day before.

“We believe that refusing to sell long guns to adults under age 21, while many young adults in our military are not similarly restricted, is wrong. We believe that villainizing modern sporting rifles in response to pressure from uninformed, anti-gun voices is wrong,” MKS Supply president Charles Brown wrote in the Tuesday statement. “We believe that hiring lobbyists to oppose American citizens’ freedoms secured by the Second Amendment is wrong. Dick’s Sporting Goods and Field & Stream, in purportedly doing all of these things, have demonstrated that they do not share our values. [We’re] standing by the American people by refusing any further sales to Dick’s Sporting Goods & Field & Stream.”

Springfield Armory ended their relationship with Dick’s last week. You may remember that back in February, Dick’s Sporting Goods caved to the gun-grabbing demands of the Parkland High School kids and adult political activists as it announced the retail chain would no longer sell rifles to anyone under the age of 21 and banned the sale of ‘assault-style’ weapons.

The hiring of three gun-control pushing lobbyists is the latest in political moves made by Dick’s this year. The lobbyists are identified as two Democrats and one Republican, according to records.

The lobbying records show Dick’s hired two Democrats and one Republican from Glover Park Group, a DC-based government affairs firm, for “[l]obbying related to gun control.” No other policy issues were listed in the disclosure form filed by the firm. The disclosure forms show Dick’s pro-gun control lobbying effort began official on April 27, 2018. The official registration form noting Dick’s retention of Glover to push for gun control was filed on Monday morning.

The three lobbyists tapped by Dick’s to push for gun control are listed by name in the federal disclosure forms, which are required by the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 to be filed quarterly: Joel Johnson, who worked for both President Bill Clinton and Senate Democrat leadership; Andrew King, who worked for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.); and Christina Brown, a former staffer for Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).

Prior to retaining Glover Park Group to push for gun control, Dick’s Sporting Goods retained the services of CSA Strategies LLC, which pushed for issues such as tax reform, cybersecurity, and patent litigation reform on behalf of Dick’s during the four-year relationship between the two companies. Both firms are headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Mossberg encourages customers to patronize “one of the thousands of pro-Second Amendment firearm retailers” instead. Sounds like good advice to me. Why a sporting goods chain feels emboldened to turn off so large of a part of its consumer base is beyond me. It sure doesn’t seem like hiring lobbyists to push an anti-Second Amendment agenda will be good for their bottom line.