Walmart is taking steps to address its gun policies, including ending the sales of specific gun and ammunition types. The Bentonville retailer is discontinuing its sales of short-barrel rifle and handgun ammunition in the wake of multiple mass shootings in August.
In a letter to company associates, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon wrote that the company would sell through its current inventory of both short-barrel rifle ammunition (including .223 caliber and 5.56 caliber) and handgun ammunition before discontinuing sales.
McMillon acknowledged that the policy change is likely to impact customers. The ammunition types that Walmart will continue to offer will be catered to “hunting and sport shooting enthusiasts.” While the short-barrel ammunition is “commonly used in some hunting rifles,” McMillon says, it can also be used in “military style weapons” like those used in recent mass shootings.
“Our remaining assortment will be even more focused on the needs of hunting and sport shooting enthusiasts,” he added. “It will include long barrel deer rifles and shotguns, much of the ammunition they require, as well as hunting and sporting accessories and apparel,” McMillon says.
According to McMillon, the company is also ending handgun sales in Alaska, the final state where Walmart continues to sell them. Walmart ended handgun sales more than 20 years ago in February 1994. In a 1993 New York Times interview, a Walmart spokesperson, Don Shinkle, said that customers had requested the changes and that “they don’t want to be around them.”
“We talk constantly to our customers, which is what we’re known for, and what we’ve been picking up over the past 12 months or so is a drastic change regarding handguns,” Shinkle said. “Our customers – now a majority of them, we feel – say Wal-Mart should not have handguns in the same store in which they shop for other goods, often with their children. We’ve even heard that from customers who oppose gun controls. But whatever the case, our business is customer-driven and retailers who don’t listen to their customers don’t stay in business.”
Customers are also being asked to no longer openly carry firearms in Walmart stores or Sam’s Clubs in states where open carry is legal. McMillon says that Walmart’s leadership team has been briefed on this new policy, and it will be shared in further detail later.
“We will treat law-abiding customers with respect, and we will have a very non-confrontational approach,” he says. “Our priority is your safety. We will be providing new signage to help communicate this policy in the coming weeks.”
The gun policy changes come on the heels of several mass shooting incidents in recent weeks. On August 3, a gunman killed 22 individuals at a Walmart location in El Paso. Two Walmart associates were killed by a coworker at a Southhaven, Miss. Walmart on July 31.
McMillon notes that he grew up hunting and is a gun owner. However, these gun policies, he says, are designed to be steps to reduce the risks of similar events happening.
“We understand that heritage, our deeply rooted place in America and our influence as the world’s largest retailer. And we understand the responsibility that comes with it,” McMillon says. “We want what’s best for our customers, our associates and our communities. In a complex situation lacking a simple solution, we are trying to take constructive steps to reduce the risk that events like these will happen again. The status quo is unacceptable.”
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