“Our merchandising decisions are driven largely by customer demand”, said Kory Lundberg, Walmart spokesperson. On Wednesday, the church’s rector, Rev. William Lupfer, cheered the retailer’s decision to replace its inventory of AR-15s with other models of shotguns and rifles. Walmart still sells ammunition for handguns and modern sporting rifles though, Lundberg says.
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Over the years, shareholders have pressured Walmart to consider changing its policies of products including weapons that hold high-capacity magazines. Fortune reports Remington Outdoor Group and Smith & Wesson reported a more than 10% decline in sales in the first half of 2015.
The next day, a shooter in Virginia killed two journalists and injured another, and the Wal-Mart news quickly got swept up in the gun control debate.
A Wal-Mart spokesman told BearingArms.com Tuesday the move was more about consumer demand than anything political.
“While we’re disappointed in Wal-Mart’s decision, we appreciate the firearms retailers who continue to carry these firearms and enable law-abiding citizens to purchase the firearm of their choice”, NRA spokesman Catherine Mortensen said via email. It is reportedly planning to add more shotguns and other hunting guns to the current range.
As a whole, gun sales are still robust across the country.
The AR-15 has previously been used by gunmen in mass shootings, including in one incident three years ago in a Newtown, Connecticut school.
In 2006 the company decreased the number of stores selling guns, but does not plan on stopping gun sales completely, Mr Lundberg said. “So the types of riles we sell, the types of ammunition we sell, should be curated for those things”.
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Molly Blakeman, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said that the company knows that not all customers are ready to do their holiday shopping this early in the year, but some are – and the early layaway program will help them. A federal court ruled in July that Wal-Mart could exclude a shareholder proposal that would call on the retailer to reconsider selling potentially unsafe products.
