Campaigners pressing for tougher controls on the sale of guns in the US notched up a big victory this week when Wal-Mart, the country’s largest seller of firearms, agreed to a 10-point plan designed to prevent weapons falling into the hands of criminals.
Wal-Mart, which sells more guns than any company in the world, agreed to co-operate with Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bi-partisan group led by New York’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg. The group has been pushing for greater safeguards at retail outlets on the sale of firearms which fuel murder rates in America’s urban areas.
Under the agreement, Wal-Mart will tighten rules at about a third of its 3,200 stores across the country. A further third will stop trading guns altogether, though for reasons of declining sales.
The new restrictions include more extensive background checks on Wal-Mart staff selling guns; all gun sales will be filmed and the videotape kept for six months; and where guns are later used in crime, extra scrutiny will be given to the original purchaser should they try to buy another weapon.
I guess more folks will be reconsidering their attitude towards Wal-Mart. Some might even make sense.
Wonder how many Wal-Mart shoppers are devout NRA members, anyway?
Uh, I’m not an NRA member, but I am a strong supporter of much of what they do.
I am also a supporter of not letting firearms get into the hands of the wrong people. From what I saw in the above clipping, I say that’s reasonable. Hell, even smart.
Tightening the policy?
Now, aside from being certified as a white Christian, they’ll also ask to see a picture ID of some kind.
Not gonna make much difference. The black market is already there, and with smash and grab robberies like they had here in Atlanta a while back where they got 80 guns ( http://ugv.abcnews.go.com/player.aspx?id=2082370 ) this move by WalMart isn’t all that relevant to the criminals.
When my wife bought her handgun they took all her info drivers license etc how is walmart security video going to be much better?
As for NRA shoppers of WalMart, umm down here in the south there is a Walmart about every 5 miles or it seems that way, and the NRA does pretty well here too…
Wal-Mart sells long guns, used in very few crimes but are used mainly for sporting purposes. They don’t sell hand guns, the sort commonly used to commit crimes and for self defense.
Wal-Mart is keeping a data base of people owning firearms that cannot be carried every day and so have to be kept in the homes where they can be stolen, and consider how insecure computer records can be. Consider also how the cops seized firearms after Katrina and after the tornado in Greenberg last year.
Correction on #6: The “confiscated” guns were apparently looted by a couple of Wichita cops, who have been charged, last I could discover. Jewelry was stolen from the same houses, but I found nothing on that.
How many Wal-Mart guns have been used in a crime?
Little secret for you all. You not allowed to sell “illegal Drugs” but people are still selling and importing them. A lot of guns violence is caused by the illegal drug trade so if they can get the drugs than they can also get the firearms.
At the end it says “where guns are later used in crime, extra scrutiny will be given to the original purchaser should they try to buy another weapon.”
I admire their care not to just automatically deny another gun sale. After all, anyone smart enough to come up with a story is ipso dipso someone that should be sold multiple guns.
If anyone is feeling inspired maybe you can print some of these and put them around Walmart:
http://tinyurl.com/64ok55
On an aside, does anyone know if there is any place outside of the US that allows citizens to carry firearms in towns and cities?
-Ben
#10 Isreal
Ordinarily, I think the people on this site would be against companies engaging in deep background checks of their employees. I think there was even a post complaining when the government did it.
First of all, in the interest of full discloser, I’ll say up front that I’m a Benefactor Life Member of the NRA and very proud to be.
Having said that, here’s the deal…my wife works part-time at a local WM where I live. The actual salespeople…on the floor…can’t actually *sell* you a gun in the first place. The manager has to sign off on the sale…..AFTER A BATFE CHECK…..and when all’s good, that SAME MANAGER has to fill out additional paperwork and then escort you out of the store.
No one can just willy-nilly buy a long gun from any Walmart. All buyers have to go through a federal “instant” background check and in a few states file additional paperwork.
I’ve bought many long guns from Walmart (a few different stores in three separate states) over the years and in each scenario, the sale was conducted the same way.
I actually take issue with the notion that one would be given “extra scrutiny” when buying a new gun. Lemme explain……First off, a “badguy” won’t apply with the ATF to buy a weapon. Secondly, if one of my guns were stolen and used in the commission of a crime, I’d be flippin’ mad since it probably means other stuff was stolen too, but I’d want my gun back or replaced. If the cops won’t give it back, I sure as heck should be allowed to get a new one and from the same store if I want. I’m not the criminal, the badguy that ripped me off and used the gun is. In my case, when no one is home, my weapons are all locked away in a heavy duty safe, but some people don’t have that luxury.
I just get tired of the same old attempts to place blame on anyone but the perp and at the same time treating law-abiding citizens like they’re potential perps just because they exercise their 2A right.
Mayor Bloomberg and his cronies need to do their jobs and not worry about how companies conduct their business when they’re following all federal laws in the first place.
I’m willing to bet that the NRA will sue Walmart and Bloomberg (again) because only Congress can pursue regulation-based changes pertaining to commerce.
Thanks for letting me vent a bit.
Okay, sure, it is now harder (or just as hard) to buy a firearm at Wal*Mart. Good. I have no problem with a responsible adult helping a responsible young person learning how to use the thing. In some sense, NRA devotees do have it right when they say “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” And as always, education is the key.
But here’s the problem, Cho can just go to the local pawn shop (I don’t like pawn shops anyway) and get a handgun and do what he wants, no questions asked. And you know what? He could still do it right now in the very same store if he hadn’t killed himself. I wonder if anyone is patrolling that store today, what with the extra police presence and all. Quite possibly not. The next time, it won’t be here (or Indiana) but somewhere else where people aren’t looking at the real problem.
Now that shows definitively that there needs to be better REAL gun control. Kudos to the big corporate dingo Wal*Wart doing something good here but that doesn’t mean there’s real change that’s needed wrt guns, nor does it mean they are actually anything other than leeches to small town America. It will take many more things to prove they’ve changed their ways. Like not trading with China for instance. Fat chance on that.
How’s that for two subjects at once!
The above poster is incorrect. Pawnshops are also required to follow the same federal firearms laws as Wal-Mart when selling a firearm.
And
The US has banned trade with NORINCO, a Chinese company that imported many cheaply made firearms into the US, so at least it’s a start.
gmknobl, I’d already owned a firearm for 4 years before going to college the first time, and I was still under 21.
I’d owned, used, carried firearms for over 20 yrs when I went back to college.
I recently got a Concealed Carry Permit in the State of Alaska, meaning I have no felony convictions and no violent misdemeanors.
Had I been a student at Virgenia Tech and had they discovered that I had a firearm on me, they would have kicked me out. But, who would be the greater hazard to the other students, me or someone like Cho? Who would have a better chance to stop that sort of killing, someone with a gun or someone trying to block a bullet with a hand held up, pleading with Cho not to shoot?
The problem is not who has guns, it’s who does not have guns.
#16–Phillep==so, you describe our nuclear defense/cold war strategy with the Russkies for years–MAD. If everyone is armed, the bad guys won’t start anything.
Then, theres loose nukes, religious nutbags, bad security, and so forth.
Your logic works, but only because the situation is insane.
NOw–is a long term solution to work towards one involving everyone armed?–or no one armed?==in a world of reasonable assumptions, which approach would work?
user45, People on fixed incomes can only afford those cheap Saturday Night Specials. Do they have no right to self defense? You know the cops don’t go into some parts of town, and did not even back before they could claim they were getting shot at. “Some animals are more equal than others”?
The SKS, one of the cheapest guns sold by NORINCO, is probably the most common deer rifle used by rednecks east of the Mississippi. The semi auto version of the AK cost little more, and it is also in common use. I thought the talking point was that no one was trying to seize or ban hunting rifles?
During the Rodney King riots in LA, Korean shop keepers used those same semi auto AKs to keep from being burned out. High capacity, semi-auto rifles, commonly called “assault rifles”, and presently restricted in California.
Ever hear “No one needs a gun that can shoot more than 5 bullets without being reloaded”. They were facing large mobs, several hundred people, and had to shoot for effect.
Gun control is not about guns. It’s about control.
Bobbo, you are proposing to put everyone under some sort of control?
The most violent portion of the population does not need firearms to inflict damage on others, being generally larger, more violent, and less restrained than the rest of the population.
Preventing little old ladies from being able to protect themselves from teen age thugs is going to reduce violence?
I suppose the violence rate is going to drop off if all the potentual victems are dead.
This sounds like a great common sense improvement!
Video taping and picturing gun sales at Walmart is a pretty damn smart idea.
#18 – I suppose the violence rate is going to drop off if all the potentual victems are dead.
No. Over the past several years, it dropped off all on its own.
#17 – “NOw–is a long term solution to work towards one involving everyone armed?–or no one armed?==in a world of reasonable assumptions, which approach would work?”
In the world as it exists and always has existed; the former.
This will probably lead to more crime and less safety. Making it harder for people to own guns leads to less guns owned, which leads to more crime.
The story says, in part:
“Wal-Mart, which sells more guns than any company in the world,” […]
Shouldn’t that be
“… any OTHER company in the world,” ?
so ur saying u wanna shoot up a school?
They are ignorant of the fact that the police are there to Serve and Protect society as a whole, not the individual. They Serve and Protect society by solving the crimes and catching the criminal AFTER the crime has been committed, to prevent the criminal from committing FURTHER crimes of the same nature. The US Supreme Court and many state Supreme Courts have ruled that the police have NO obligation to protect individuals, and that we are responsible for our own protection.