Moms Demand Action called for a boycott of Bass Pro Shops, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Cabela’s, and Walmart on Black Friday.

Stores are marketing guns aggressively to Black Friday buyers, trying to revive sales that have slowed since last year. Bass Pro Shops, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Cabela’s, and Walmart are offering discounts on semi-automatic rifles like the one used in the Sandy Hook Elementary mass shooting, and are even giving guns away in raffles: http://huff.to/1cbU7pU

The gun lobby and these merchandisers have capitalized on tragedies like Newtown and other mass shootings to make a profit. Moms make 80 percent of the spending decisions in America – please take action today by avoiding these stores.

Retail boycotts are judged on the lost sales generated by media attention for the cause. So how successful was the Moms Demand Black Friday boycott?

Media Attention for the Moms Demand Black Friday boycott

I can find precisely zero news stories that mentioned the Moms Demand boycott in numerous Google News searches on related terms. Not one. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Lost Sales resulting from the Moms Demand Black Friday boycott

Zero publicity outside the groups meager Facebook following means that the boycott was an abject failure, but we can still take a look at Black Friday sales events at these stores and get a rough feeling about how the general public feels about gun sales. It will be days before the retail smoke clears and we know exactly what sales figures are chain-wide across these stores, but we do have anecdotal evidence rolling in from individual locations. Here is just a quick sampling.

Walmart is reporting increased early sales.

1,500 shoppers were lines up at one Cabela’s, where a lucky customer won a rifle.

This Bass Pro Shops location was packed, while other local retail stores of various types didn’t do as well. Gun sales were a big draw.

Conclusions

The Moms Demand boycott had no measurable impact on the boycotted stores, as the group’s call to boycott these four chains was completely ignored.