Walmart prepares for election aftermath, pulls guns and ammo from store shelves

The decision has been made by Walmart to remove guns and ammunition from sales floors in stores as Election Day approaches. Shoppers can still purchase guns and ammo from the retailer but they will have to ask for them. Walmart is concerned about potential violence in the aftermath of the election.

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Who can blame the company for this decision? It makes sense after all the violence and looting that we have seen in cities across the country. There will likely be riots and destruction after the election, especially if President Trump wins re-election. Antifa and BLM Marxists infiltrate protests and incite violence, turning the “peaceful protests” into riots. We have seen the violence and destruction over and over again since the Summer of Love began. Walmart sells guns in about half of its 4700 stores in the United States. Gun sales will not be stopped, the guns will just not be on display.

I don’t know if taking them out of sight will stop the theft of guns and ammo since the looters are really brazen and aggressive during the riots. They destroy brick and mortar stores. What is to stop them from going back into the storage areas? It isn’t unusual for observers to see police stand down and the looters roam free. I’m not blaming the police but mayors and city officials are failing to get the violence under control. The anarchists are emboldened when police are told to stand down. Philadelphia, for example, is experiencing rampant violence and looting this week, yet the Philadelphia City Council has passed a bill banning the use of tear gas by officers against “peaceful protesters.” The narrative that this kind of move and justification by the city council produces is to believe that the police are the bad guys and using tear gas without provocation. When city officials don’t have the backs of law enforcement, chaos and civil unrest will ensue.

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Walmart has taken such precautions during other periods of unrest. They did the same after the death of George Floyd.

“We have seen some isolated civil unrest and as we have done on several occasions over the last few years, we have moved our firearms and ammunition off the sales floor as a precaution for the safety of our associates and customers,” a Walmart spokesman said. The company hasn’t decided how long the items will stay out of view, he said.

In a letter to store managers Wednesday, Walmart asked staff to pull guns from shelves “due to the current unrest in isolated areas of the country and out of an abundance of caution.”

Walmart also removed firearms and ammunition from stores this summer in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by police when several of Walmart’s stores were damaged.

Walmart made a decision to only sell firearms and ammunition that appeals to hunters last year. The demand for firearms is skyrocketing. One reason is that many Americans are concerned for their personal safety and that of their family as violence moves from downtown protests out to the suburbs. There is no end in sight, at this point. Polling shows that voters worry about violence in America. People are worried about what will happen on Election Day and in the days after the election. Preparations are being taken across the country by elected officials.

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Americans are increasingly worried about what will happen at the finish line of this year’s tumultuous election, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds, including whether the voting will be peaceful and the outcome broadly accepted.

Three of 4 voters express concern about the possibility of violence on Election Day. Only 1 in 4 say they are “very confident” that the nation will have a peaceful transfer of power if Democratic challenger Joe Biden defeats President Donald Trump.

Voters in both parties are worried about the divisions in America and how election results will be handled by voters, or by bad actors.

“There’s a very angry undertone out there right now,” said Monica Ponton, 72, of St. Petersburg, Florida. The registered nurse, a Democrat who was called in the survey, has already cast her ballot for Biden. “I’m in my 70s, and I feel like this is one of the scariest times I’ve ever seen for America since possibly (President) Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis” in 1962.

“I think it’s a bit rocky right now,” Rachel Hage, a stay-at-home mother of three from Boise, Idaho, replied when asked in a follow-up interview about how things were going in the country. A Republican, she plans to go to the polls on Election Day to vote for Trump.

Three of 4 say they are concerned about the possibility of violence on Election Day and afterward; more than a third are “very concerned.” Only about 1 in 5, 22%, express little or no concern.

That reflects a significant shift over the past four years. In October 2016, the USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll found that almost half of Americans, 47%, had little or no concern about violence around the election.

“Honestly, I’m a little bit frightened,” said Valerie Soldatow, 40, of Pittsboro, North Carolina. An independent, she didn’t vote in 2016 and has now cast a ballot for Biden, albeit without much enthusiasm, in hopes of bringing about change. “There’s a lot of division. I feel like there is much more hatred and a lot more aggressiveness being shown by people, and that to me is very frightening.”

Since the last election, confidence that there will be a peaceful transfer of power has eroded, perhaps because Trump has refused to commit to that. At this point in 2016, 40% of Americans were “very confident” about a peaceful transfer of power. Now just 23% are. Nearly 4 in 10 have little confidence that will happen.

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An erosion in confidence of a peaceful transfer of power is blamed on Trump in the article but that’s a dishonest way of framing the topic. Hillary Clinton refused to make a commitment of conceding the election on Election Night and as it turned out, she waited before making a concession speech until the next day. Trump is saying he’ll wait for election results, which is perfectly reasonable. And, I might point out, Biden is being given advice by Hillary this year to not concede to Trump at all. So, spare me the finger-pointing aimed at Trump.

We’ll get through this election. We’re Americans. We are a divided country, that is the reality. I’m more concerned about violence in the streets if Trump wins than if Biden wins. The angry left is violent and destructive. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best in the aftermath. Four more days to go.

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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | November 21, 2024
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David Strom 11:20 AM | November 21, 2024
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