Anti-gun activists and the media (BIRM) rejoiced at Walmart’s announcement last week “requesting” that customers not open carry in their store. Now, the New York Times has a piece detailing how, in Texas at least, Walmart has chosen not to enforce its “request” that customers not open carry firearms.
Retailers Walk Thin Line by Asking, Not Telling, Shoppers Not to Carry Guns
David Amad, a gun rights activist and the vice president of Open Carry Texas, is not especially bothered by Walmart’s recent announcement that it is “respectfully requesting” that customers not openly carry guns into its stores.
Mr. Amad said many of his group’s 38,000 members had carried their guns openly into Walmart stores since the retailer made the policy public last Tuesday. None have been asked to leave.
“They are ducking the issue,” Mr. Amad said of Walmart. “They are trying to get the gun haters to leave them alone, while at the same time leave us alone when we carry in their stores.”
Walmart’s announcement followed the shooting that killed 22 people at its store in El Paso last month, and it sparked similar actions by Kroger, CVS, Walgreens and the Wegmans grocery chain.
The story was originally posted with another title.
Not only did Open Carry Texas spring into action to test Walmart’s resolve, but they then went public touting their findings. It’s almost as if Open Carry Texas is daring Walmart to take more substantive action to end open carry in their stores, once and for all.
The public perception-blind Open Carry Texas failed to use common sense when the reporters came calling. The New York Times ran their story with this picture at the top of their page.
Facepalm.
Don’t these guys understand that they’re representing all of The People of the Gun when they engage in their activism? Not only do they foolishly double down on carrying long guns openly in public, but here’s a guy with no shirt and his underwear showing.
Nothing like playing to the media’s negative stereotypes instead of dressing professionally, or at least business casual to appear in front of reporters covering a national gun-related story.
It’s almost as if some open carriers are bent on setting back gun rights for all of us, in the name of “muh rights!”
How many legislatures will take up open carry restrictions over the next year, in part thanks to open carry activists like these and the guy in Springfield, Missouri? How many man-hours of lobbyist and activist time will the good guys need to spend in order to beat back these new regulations instead of passing new pro-gun laws?