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Originally Posted by elysiantraveller
It's a feel good PR stunt. Dicks hasn't had gun buyers for awhile now. If they rrally cared they would instead lobby for better background checks and controls since they actually sold the kid a gun.
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If it's a PR stunt, they should probably rethink it.
If there are 100 people and 50 are pro gun and 50 are anti gun, if you take sides, you have alienated 50 customers who will potentially boycott you. It doesn't even matter which side you take. That's the environment we are in.
The only stance you can take is no stance - which is basically the technique Warren Buffett used.
"I think what the kids are doing there is very admirable, but I don't think that Berkshire should say, 'We're not going to do business with people that hold guns,'" Buffett said in an interview on CNBC Monday.
"I think you should be pretty careful before a company takes a big political opinion," he said.
"I don't believe in imposing my views on 370,000 employees and a million shareholders. I'm not their nanny on that," the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway told "Squawk Box."
"People individually should very much express their views," he said. "I don't think that Berkshire should say we're not going to do business with people who own guns. I think that would be ridiculous."
Buffett cautioned “it’s a mistake to start getting personal views and trying to impose them on an organization.”
“I have not issued any edict….that they can’t own stock in any gun manufacturers,” Buffett said, referring to his team of stock pickers. “They can own stock in gun manufacturers. They can own stock in liquor manufacturers. We do own stock in [liquor-maker] Diageo and have for a long time.”
