Walmart Ends All Handgun Ammunition Sales and Asks Customers Not to Carry Guns into Stores Anymore

Walmart announced on Tuesday that it will stop selling all handgun and “short-barrel rifle ammunition.” The stores will still allow concealed carry by customers with permits in its stores as long as the local manager allows such.

The announcement comes in the wake of the mass shooting at Walmart stores in South Haven, MS and El Paso, TX.

Short-barrel rifle ammunition that is often used in liberals fictitiously named assault weapons, such as .223 caliber and 5.56 caliber will be available until the chains sells all of its current inventory.

While the stores will still allow concealed carry by customers with permits, Walmart requests that customers no longer openly carry guns into any of its 4,700 stores.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, said in a memo to employees, “It’s clear to us that the status quo is unacceptable.” He said the changes were prompted by mass shootings in El Paso, Midland, and Odessa, Texas, and Dayton, Oh.

The National Rifle Association released a statement regarding Walmart’s decision that reads in part, “The strongest defense of freedom has always been our free-market economy. It is shameful to see Walmart succumb to the pressure of the anti-gun elites. Lines at Walmart will soon be replaced by lines at other retailers who are more supportive of America’s fundamental freedoms … The truth is Walmart’s actions today will not make us any safer. Rather than place the blame on the criminal, Walmart has chosen to victimize law-abiding Americans … Our leaders must be willing to approach the problems of crime, violence and mental health with sincerity and honesty.”

McMillon said the retail giant currently accounts for about 20 percent market share of ammunition sales, but the new policy will drop that to between six and nine percent.

The CEO of Walmart, a gun owner himself, went out of his way to avoid alienating customers saying, “We will treat law-abiding customers with respect, and we will have a very non-confrontational approach.” He emphasized Walmart will remain “focused on the needs of hunting and sport shooting enthusiasts.”

McMillon also called on Congress to renew its debate on re-authorizing the assault weapons ban and expanded background checks. He said, “Congress and the administration should act … we are also offering to serve as a resource in the national debate on responsible gun sales.”

While liberals and the mainstream media lavished praise on Walmart for its decision, Fox News host Tucker Carlson accused the world’s largest retailer of aligning itself with “urban” liberals in the ongoing gun debate. He also said the mega-giant is complicit in “destroying the economies of small American towns,” the very places it makes the great majority of its revenue.

Carlson remarked, “The company [Walmart] is more responsible than any other company for destroying and degrading rural America, for making our towns uglier and cheaper and poorer. The same people who pushed the appalling lie that brightly colored plastic crap from China is going to make us happy. That company is now lecturing normal Americans, the very Americans that they have hurt, how immoral they are for daring to protect themselves with firearms.”

Walmart’s move is incredible since progressives in America have vilified the chain for years actively seeking to bar it from their cities.

New York City abounds with big box stores — Target, Sears, Best Buy, and even Kmart — but Mayor Bill De Blasio, the United Food & Commercial Workers, and many of the city’s leading progressives want no part of Walmart.

Now liberal news hosts from New York City locals to CNN and MSNBC are lauding Walmart. The company that used to be the target of coordinated attacks from the left is now its darling.

For years, Walmart has done everything from hiring PR consultants to union busters, but the left has ruled the day and kept the chain out. Now they are being praised but why? Carlson says as liberals got richer, they “traded economic issues for identity issues.”

In the meantime, as Walmart has seen a drop in sales while it seeks to take on the even bigger giant, Amazon it is seeking to “buy immunity from criticism from the left by mouthing left-wing pieties.”

Or, as Carlson said, “That’s all it takes really. Sounding woke and they’ll leave you alone.”

The NRA predicted the company will see a backlash in the form of fewer customers. For that small-town retailers cheer.