I’ve been reading, and thinking a lot about Walmart’s recent decision on gun and ammunition sales as well as them asking customers to not open-carry within their stores. Okay, let’s start off and say that a private corporation can decide what they will or will not sell. By the way, not every Walmart in the country sells guns and ammunition and of course, not every state has a open carry law. My experience, locally, is I rarely have noticed anyone within Walmart with a pistol on their hip. I’m just one person though, and am not there everyday so I have no idea how common this is where I live.

So in doing some reading recently, I ran across this blog post that I think captures the entire controversy pretty well. It comes down to this: Walmart is attempting to appease the coastal elites while giving the finger to those that actually made Walmart the largest retailer in the United States. that seems to be a fair assessment and although I’ve not seen anyone calling for a boycott of Walmart (no one should be doing this) there are people saying that, well, maybe Walmart won’t be their first stop when they are shopping online or in person. That’s reasonable.

Of course, I don’t think that not selling some firearms or ammunition will hurt them much. As I already mentioned, not every Walmart sells guns and ammunition. In fact, here’s a piece written just a few weeks ago by a reporter that was trying to show how easy it was to obtain a firearm at Walmart. She discovered it wasn’t the case. These stories have been around for years though because of the false claim that it is easier to buy a gun than…[ place anything here] and of course, as all these stories end, the writer discovers that the claim is patently false.

I’ll continue to shop at Walmart. I’ve never bought firearms or ammunition there. Why? It’s even cheaper to attend a “gun show” and buy ammunition and where I live, there’s at least one every month. If the management of Walmart decide they no longer want to sell underwear? People will find another retailer. Will this decision by Walmart hurt them in the short or long term? That’s yet to be determined, but just looking long term and the fact that not all Walmarts sell guns or ammunition, I doubt it. Management knows this. It’s a calculated decision I think and it’s okay.

So let’s not make too much of this decision. Within the same distance of Walmart to my home? There are two gun stores. Plus, I can buy over the Internet and have my purchase (firearm) shipped to my local gun store. Yes, I have to pay a fee there for processing (background check), but so what? What I’m saying is that gun owners have and have always had other means to purchase their firearms or ammunition.

That they have caved to the anti-gun coalition is disappointing, not unexpected due to recent events.