A Florida man caused some worry when he walked into a Port St. Lucie Walmart and asked the clerk about a gun to kill people with.
Phil Attey, an anti-gun activist, admitted to WPTV the remark was in poor taste, but he was trying to make an anti-gun statement because he saw someone who looked like a white nationalist purchase a gun.
It “was for them [Walmart] to wake up and think about their role in the gun violence toxic climate that we have,” he said.
The clerk said Attey asked him, “Can you sell me anything (or a gun) that would kill 200 people?” When the worker replied, “That isn’t funny,” Attey said, “I know,” and asked again if they could sell him anything that would kill 200 people.
St Lucie Police say the man who asked a Walmart clerk about a gun to kill people, has been located and found not to be a threat. pic.twitter.com/gPR1eMCVOI
— Matt Sczesny WPTV (@WPTVMatt) August 8, 2019
“YES … THIS WAS ME,” Attey said while sharing an article on his Facebook account. “Yes, I was making a political statement. Walmart, what say ye? Can you guarantee that the guns you sell won’t be used to take human life? And if you cannot … STOP SELLING THEM!”
A Walmart in El Paso, Texas, was the scene of a mass shooting over the weekend, where a gunman killed over 20 people. In a manifesto that was reportedly written by the shooter, he wrote that he wanted to stop the “Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
