The first rule of good capitalism is to figure out what your customers want - and then make it available to them at a competitive price.

The second rule is to make them feel comfortable - at home in your store.

And the third rule is to never insult them.

McDonald’s doesn’t sell Tofu burgers. And if McDonald's decided that beginning next week it would no longer sell Quarter Pounders - with meat as well as cheese - it’s a good bet there wouldn’t be a McDonald’s the week after that. As of this writing Ronald MacDonald continues to be Earth's biggest meat-eating barbarian.

Dick's Sporting Goods, the Pittsburgh-based retailer, finds itself in a precarious position. It has been losing sales ever since it announced it would no longer sell items many of its traditional customers very much want to buy.

Rifles, as well as handguns and shooting related accessories.

And not because they weren't selling.

Dick's became a retail sporting juggernaut in no small measure on the strength of sales to outdoorsmen, hunters and recreational shooters - who found not just the rifles and shooting accessories they were interested in - and at very competitive prices - but also found a friendly environment.

Customers knew they could count on knowledgeable people behind the counter who shared their interest.

That their business was welcomed and appreciated.

This is as least as important as the lower-than-most prices a large retailer such as Dick's can offer customers by leveraging its buying power and passing along some of those savings.

Regardless of price, not many people want to shop at a place where they get the feeling their business isn't wanted - where their interests are viewed with no-so-thinly veiled contempt.

But that's just what's happened at Dick's - and the consequences are manifesting in the bottom line.

The same buyers who built Dick's up have been heading for the doors - along with their wallets. Probably heading over to Bass Pro Shops or Cabela's.

According to a Nov. 28 article in The Wall Street Journal, sales at bricks-and-mortar Dick's outlets and via the company's web site are down 3.9 percent over the past quarter - and not just because Dick's stopped selling guns.

People have also stopped buying outdoor/hunting gear and other related products at Dick's - a dollars-and-cents expression of their feelings about Dick's attitude toward them; about not liking being at least implicitly put into the same basket as criminals who use guns to commit murder.

It stands to reason.

Why, after all, would a hunter want to buy a blaze orange hunting jacket at a store that pretty clearly doesn't approve of him hunting? Or owning a fire arm legally at all?

That customer is pretty likely to take his business elsewhere - and not just to make a point. It is inconvenient to have to two-stop shop. If Dick's won't sell a man a rifle and a hunting jacket, but Gander Mountain will - and gladly, too - guess where that customer is more likely to shop?

Nothing is more American than voting with your wallet.

The company first took most of the rifles it used to sell off its shelves back in 2012, after the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut.

It quietly walked back its self-imposed ban a few months later, but restricted sales of "assault style" rifles and high-capacity magazines to its Field & Stream stores.

However, this acceptance of the demagogic terminology used by those opposed to ordinary Americans owning rifles (and handguns) at all opened a chasm of bad feelings between Dick's and many formerly loyal customers.

An "assault style" rifle is just a scary way to refer to a semi-automatic rifle - which is a rifle that fires a bullet with each trigger pull. Which is what almost all "modern" rifles - hunting as well as sporting - do.

That was bad enough.

Then came the Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. And on Feb. 28, shortly after the shooting, Dick's management announced it would no longer sell virtually any of the rifles it used to sell and no rifles, period, to anyone under the age of 21 - even though it's legal in most states for eighteen-year-olds to buy them.

Dicks has every right to not sell guns - or anything else, for that matter. But Dick's customers have just as much right to take their business elsewhere.

The company says it “ . . . recognize(s) and appreciates(s) that the vast majority of gun owners in this country are responsible, law-abiding citizens," and that it “ . . . respects and supports the Second Amendment,” but it decided on a policy that pretty clearly conveys the opposite message.

Not only did Dick's stop selling rifles, it also announced that it would destroy the rifles it had pulled off its shelves - to really get the point across.

“We are in the process of destroying all firearms and accessories that are no longer for sale as a result of our February 28th policy change,” a spokesperson from Dick’s told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

This could ultimately destroy Dick's, too - along with the jobs of thousands of people and families who work for Dick's.

Virtue signaling is not a very good business model, and if Dick's isn't careful their last Christmas shopping season could be fast approaching.

A.J. Rice is the CEO of Publius PR. In his media career, he has produced or promoted Laura Ingraham, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Monica Crowley, Charles Krauthammer, Steve Hilton, George P. Bush, Pastor Paula White, Walter E. Williams, Coach Howard Schnellenberger, and many others. Find out more at publiuspr.com.