Walmart is going to stop selling AR-15s and other assault rifles

The changes are being rolled out to stores this week as Wal-Mart updates its sporting goods sections for the fall season.

While Wal-Mart said its decision was based on sales, the move is likely to become a talking point in a simmering national debate about gun policy, which heated up earlier this year in the wake of the shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church that left nine dead. The stores will instead stock guns that sell better, like hunting rifles. “Intermediate-caliber rifle, chambered for cartridges such as 7.62x39mm, with a selector switch that determines full or semi-automatic fire, such as the M16, and that is the standard infantry weapon of modern armies”. Weapons like these have been used in mass shootings in the recent past, including the Colorado theater shooting and the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. He says the decision was made in the spring. That’s up from 1.4 million total checks in July of 2015.

Lundberg said the company had seen a decrease in sales of the particular models of guns, but declined to give specific sales numbers.

‘We are instead focusing on hunting and sportsman firearms’.

“In my experience working with Wal-Mart in 2008, I found them to be extremely concerned about responsible gun sales”, he said. “If there’s not customer demand there, we’ll phase it out”.

Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE:WMT) opened at 63.10 on Friday.

As Wal-Mart grows these types of stores, Perkins says there will be more competition in the space as the big box retailer tries to capitalize on the convenience these smaller stores offer.

In the months following the incidents, AR-15 sales skyrocketed, with the New York Times calling the AR-15 “The Most Wanted Gun in America”.

A lower court ruled that the shareholders should be allowed to consider the proposal, but a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge lifted that injunction. Trinity Church is glad to hear that Walmart is doing this.

Video of Wednesday’s attack showed a man firing a handgun at a TV reporter, Alison Parker, and a cameraman, Adam Ward, during a live broadcast.