Activists On Both Sides See Walmart's And Others Policy As A "Middle Ground"

Status
Not open for further replies.
IIRC, didn't Tennessee pass a law on this a few years ago? If a business denied you carrying, they would be liable if anything happened.
Don't know. But unfortunately, I think the store may be liable regardless. As you can see from the law suits against Walmart after the El Paso incident. Deep pockets attract liable law suits.
 
Time will tell if enough guns owners actually stop shopping there and can impact their bottom line.

I'm pretty sure the liberal Wal Mart management feels thst the hicks in flyover country will keep shopping in their stores.
 
Empirical question folks - in another thread, it was pointing out that some folks wanted to boycott Target and some did over bathroom designations. I replied that they just had a great financial report.

So wait to see how WalMart does before you say, you got them on the run.
 
Yes, agreed ... Time will tell.

As to Target, I thought the gender bathroom thing would be short lived.

With Walmart, I think gun owners boycott could be longer lasting with greater impact.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HB
Walmart knows their ammunition sales in great depth. I can bet they know precisely what to expect with a reduction in handgun and typical military like rifle ammunition (like 5.56/223) sales in terms of their bottom line. Remember they sell other ammunition and I fully expect them to continue to sell 22 rimfire ammunition regardless of whether or not it can be used in a handgun. You remember the question.... long gun or handgun with regard to rimfire ammunition. More than likely they know how much other shopping is conducted by folks that buy ammunition as well on average.

I would also bet they have a pretty good idea of the amount of cash sales versus credit card sales also.
 
They already said they anticipate their market share to drop down to 6%
Yes, but how many shoppers only buy ammunition? It is the rest of their product line sales that is critically important to their bottom line. 6% of what $$ before they drop the non-conforming ammunition. I bet when they dropped AR's, their sales figures barely made a bounce.

Yes, we're talking about "boycotting the store".... the impact....
 
Yes, but how many shoppers only buy ammunition? It is the rest of their product line sales that is critically important to their bottom line. 6% of what $$ before they drop the non-conforming ammunition. I bet when they dropped AR's, their sales figures barely made a bounce.
My first stop in Walmart was always the sporting goods section, where I exclusively bought my shotgun shells, .22LR, and SD pistol ammo (I reload everything else). Most trips, all of my purchases were in sporting goods. This policy has been a wake-up to me, on how much I truly disliked going in there, which I haven't since the announcement. I just ordered 12ga rounds online, for a little more than Walmart, and no regrets. From now on, I will be following suit with all of my ammo purchases.
 
The sporting goods section used to be my first stop too. Don't even look any more.

On the rimfire stuff, I only bought one specific brand Federal Lightning (510B's) in 50ct boxes. These were my plinking and general purpose ammo and I have thousands of rounds in my cache. I have not seen any in a long time there. I have some bulk packs (maybe 10K rounds) total, but it is not something I buy routinely when I am thinking of getting 22 LR. I mostly bought elsewhere and what many would consider higher grade 22 ammo. Lots of standard velocity stuff.... I don't buy handgun ammo there or even try to. Since I essentially stopped hunting, I have not bought any shotgun shells at all. I just don't care much for just blasting away with a shotgun.
 
Yes, but how many shoppers only buy ammunition? It is the rest of their product line sales that is critically important to their bottom line. 6% of what $$ before they drop the non-conforming ammunition. I bet when they dropped AR's, their sales figures barely made a bounce.

Yes, we're talking about "boycotting the store".... the impact....
While I agree margin on ammunition may be thin (and why Walmart was willing to stop sales of "handgun" ammo, whatever that may be), I think more significant drop in revenue will come from associated purchases not made.

How much? We will see in time. Wife and I spend over $10,000 annually on discretionary "hobby" spending that could be spent at Walmart out of floating total $50,000 -$60,000 annual budget (We are retired and draw from savings in addition to pension). If we choose to include groceries, more than $1,500 could leave Walmart monthly as we can purchase almost everything from online sources and Walmart's local competitors at comparable if not lower prices (For our area, Walmart does not have the lowest prices).
 
Last edited:
In my opinion, Walmart will quietly go back to selling the same ammunition and claim that they have long term commitments if they see a significant reduction in their sporting goods sales and more importantly their overall sales.

I am certainly not going to race to WM to buy ammunition and they will not be my first choice regardless on any ammunition they sell.
 
In my opinion, Walmart will quietly go back to selling the same ammunition and claim that they have long term commitments if they see a significant reduction in their sporting goods sales and more importantly their overall sales.

I am certainly not going to race to WM to buy ammunition and they will not be my first choice regardless on any ammunition they sell.

You may be right. We had four WM's here and they took guns out of all of them. One closed and they quietly added a gun department (such as it is) in the newest store.

Reagards,
hps
 
I am sure Walmart board and CEO heard the angry responses of gun owners loud and clear.

And the fact that Walmart operates in a very competitive sector, I doubt they could stand to lose too much market share/revenue.

Besides, Walmart is trying to break into healthcare sector by opening new medical clinics at Walmart and boycott by gun owners COULD negatively impact that project launch.
 
Last edited:
I am sure Walmart board and CEO heard the angry responses of gun owners loud and clear.

And the fact that Walmart operates in a very competitive market, I doubt they could stand to lose too much market share/revenue.
I feel sure they have already heard from the gun crowd. WM is in the business of making money. I don't agree with some of their business practices that I have heard about with vendors. It is often slow death for the vendors. I notice they still carry Rubbermaid (RM) stuff, but limit the amount of plastic containers made by RM. I buy at Home Depot or Lowes now. As was mentioned, the only companies that WM can't control are companies like Coca Cola Proctor Gamble etc. People want their products. I would go as far as to say people demand their products and would be a reason not to shop there if they were not sold at WM. I would not be surprised the the CEO has to eat crow on this one or be replaced. It is all about money....
 
Let's see, Wm*** is a charter member..... started in 2006. I never really heard a complaint until this latest business happened. You can...

You are exactly correct. The latest middle finger salute to 2A by a private corp was a trifecta of events. A horrible shooting by a nut-without-a-bolt case,the CEOs advocacy policy reminder, and...strangely:scrutiny: an all-out anti2A push from every (Leftist) candidate , both with a chance and no chance of the hard (L) nomination. The correlation between at least two of the events (I do not do conspiracy theories) is not happenstance.


I think WM*** became a proverbial ''last straw'' to 2A advocates, whether wanting to by one box of shotshells for rabbit season or purchase the LARGE METAL CANS of FOUR HUNDRED TWENTY rounds (420) of 5.5.6 BLASTING ammo.

IMHO, it was just , just...too much for the vast majority of 2A advocates, a simple ''if not now, when?'' moment to push back a little. With dollars:thumbup:

Was it a ''last straw'' moment? A bridge too far? Time will tell. I made my decision.
 
I am going to ponder just how I can work around shopping at WM as much as I do. The same goes for Sam's Club. Sam's Club is where I depend on buying certain business supplies and I have always liked their meat since they package it at the store rather than have it shipped in from somewhere packaged. I certainly would like to nudge them a little with my shopping dollars.
 
I don't see it as "middle ground". I would if it were a private individual, but as a company that is open to the public (the public that has the right to keep,and bare arms) I don't. To me, this is leftist individuals at top levels of management using their position to make a political statement. They must feel that the left has more to offer them.


OR... they're just idiots.
 
In my opinion, Walmart will quietly go back to selling the same ammunition and claim that they have long term commitments if they see a significant reduction in their sporting goods sales and more importantly their overall sales.

I am certainly not going to race to WM to buy ammunition and they will not be my first choice regardless on any ammunition they sell.

From what I have heard a vocal segment of their management team is anti gun and has been pushing for years to eliminate all firearm related products. After the first of the recent mass shootings they all threatened to walk out of the company, so a big part of the CEO's decisions were based on making them happy va making their consumer base happy.

I predict when WalMart starts taking a hit they will double down on their decision and eliminate all remaining guns and ammo
 
From what I have heard a vocal segment of their management team is anti gun and has been pushing for years to eliminate all firearm related products. After the first of the recent mass shootings they all threatened to walk out of the company, so a big part of the CEO's decisions were based on making them happy va making their consumer base happy.

I predict when WalMart starts taking a hit they will double down on their decision and eliminate all remaining guns and ammo
That would go against their general support for hunters and the sporting community in general. We'll see.

The other item is I doubt the CEO made this decision without board approval. Left leaning management is no big surprise in today's world. They think they know better and have a responsibility to control the masses with their philosophies. However I think money wins ultimately. Why does WM continue to sell tobacco products in their stores? I think the answer to that is their client base may in fact not shop at all in WM if they didn't sell these products. Why do they sell adult beverages (wine and beer)?
 
Last edited:
I almost expect them to eleminate other ammunition and firearm sales simply because most of the volume of ammunition goes to pistol shooters with self defense being the primary purpose in our urbanizing society, and tactical rifle shooters, popular with law enforcement and citizens. Hunters barely shoot ammunition to sight in a rifle and go hunting, the quantity of ammunition sales is tiny by comparison, and a decent amount of hunters also use tactical and non tactical rifles in discontinued calibers. They know this and already anticipated going from 20% to 6% of nationwide ammo sales, and that was without factoring in any boycott or changes in shopping habits.
Yet they have to have staff trained to handle FFL transfers and ammunition sales for what amounts to very little profit now and big liability if they make mistakes.

Of course by staying in the gun and ammunition selling business they can try to shape the sentiment about firearms through policies and perhaps even weigh in on gun legislation from that angle. Perhaps that is part of the agenda. Irregardless I will be avoiding Walmart now. The ammunition being less expensive than most competition was one of the primary things that brought me into their store, where I would pick up other things I could have bought other places. It almost always took awhile to get someone to even unlock the ammunition cabinet and help me at the sporting counter.
 
Last edited:
The middle depends on where both ends are.

If one end is no gun laws and the other is restrictive gun laws such as in England than the middle is pretty wide.

However when one end is mandatory UBC’ s for all gun transactions, 30 day waiting periods, ban on magazine capacity and on ownership on certain types of guns and the other end is registration of all gun owners, storage of guns in government approved safes and mandatory surrender of guns to the government than the middle is pretty narrow.

By joining with Bloomberg Wal-Mart has moved both ends past what I will support.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top