With President
Barack Obama endorsing sweeping gun restrictions in the wake of the school
shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, prices for handgun magazines are surging on
EBay and semi-automatic rifles are sold out at many Walmart
Stores.
Walmart, the
world’s largest retailer, said yesterday that it would continue to sell guns,
including rifles like the one used at Newtown, where 26 people, most of them
children, were killed on Dec. 14.
By contrast,
Dick’s Sporting Goods suspended sales of similar guns at its more than 500
stores.
Searches of five
kinds of semi-automatic rifles on Walmart’s website showed them to be out of
stock at stores in five states, including Pennsylvania, Kansas and Alabama.
Walmart doesn’t
sell guns online, instead asking customers to input a zip code to see if their
local store carries a specific weapon.
“We remain
dedicated to the safe and responsible sale of firearms in areas of the country
where they are sold,” David Tovar, a spokesman for Walmart, said
yesterday.
Another
spokesman, Kory Lundberg, said that the company is sticking by its decision not
to change its gun assortment. He declined to comment on gun sales since Newtown.
Walmart sells guns in 1,800 of its more than 3,800 U.S. stores, he said.
Rifles like the
one used in Newtown are available in 1,200 locations and the retailer doesn’t
sell high-capacity magazines for those guns, he said. Business
Week
Walmart has
about 10 modern sporting rifles, the gun industry’s term for firearms that look
like an M-16 military rifle, listed on its website. The retailer removed a
description and picture of the Bushmaster AR-15, which was the model used in
Newtown, after the shootings. In 2006, Walmart
reduced the number and variety of guns it offered in stores, but then
reintroduced firearms to many stores in April 2011 as part of a strategy to add
merchandise back to shelves and revive sales growth at its Walmart locations in
the U.S. The move may
have helped as U.S. Walmart stores posted their first gain in same-store sales
in more than two years in October 2011. Walmart doesn’t
disclose how many guns it sells, though at an analysts’ meeting in October it
said gun revenue gained 76 percent in the first half of this fiscal year.
Bloomberg
AHT/ARA
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