Walmart restored guns and ammunition to its sales floors after the company pulled the equipment, citing concerns that there could be major social unrest following Election Day.
“After civil unrest earlier this week resulted in damage to several of our stores, consistent with actions we took over the summer, we asked stores to move firearms and ammunition from the sales floor to a secure location in the back of the store in an abundance of caution,” Walmart said in a statement. “As the current incidents have remained geographically isolated, we have made the decision to begin returning these products to the sales floor today.”
The shift comes just one day after the company announced it would pull firearms and ammunition from its floor on Thursday.
BREAKING: Walmart will return firearms and ammunition to sales floors today. @yahoofinance $WMT
— Julia La Roche (@JuliaLaRoche) October 30, 2020
Walmart made the decision following unrest that erupted in Philadelphia following the death of Walter Wallace Jr., who was shot and killed by police.
The company made a similar decision to remove firearms and ammunition from its sales floors temporarily after violent protests escalated over the summer following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The demonstrations damaged several stores.
Following Walmart’s announcement of the decision to remove firearms from display, stocks of publicly traded gun companies fell sharply on Friday, according to CNN Business.
Shares of American Outdoor Brands, formerly known as Smith & Wesson, fell nearly 4%. Sturm, Ruger, & Co. fell 1% in midday trading, while ammunition-maker Vista Outdoor fell 10%, and Axon Enterprise, maker of the Taser stun gun, fell over 4%.
Walmart is the country’s biggest retailer and remains one of the country’s major sellers of guns and ammunition.
But the debate over gun control following several mass shootings in recent years prompted the company to scale back some of its firearms in about half of its 4,700 stores.
In 2019, Walmart stopped selling ammunition that can be used in semi-automatic rifles and handguns after a shooting occurred at one of its stores in El Paso, Texas, leaving 23 people dead.
In 2015, the company stopped selling assault-style weapons and raised the age to buy firearms and ammunition from 18 to 21.
In 1993, after Walmart faced lawsuits over selling guns to customers who allegedly were not qualified to buy them and later used them in fatal shooting incidents, the company stopped selling handguns everywhere except Alaska.
The decision to halt the sale of handguns came the same year President Bill Clinton signed the Brady bill into law, which requires a prospective handgun buyer to wait five business days while authorities check their background in order to approve the sale.
