Walmart has requested that its employees remove any video game signs that depict violence after a mass shooting left 22 people dead at one of its stores in El Paso, Texas last weekend.
The order was released in an internal memo, instructing workers “to remove any violent marketing material, unplug Xbox and PlayStation consoles that show violent video games and turn off any violence depicted on screens in its electronics departments,” according to the Associated Press.
All hunting season videos in the sporting goods department were also banned from being displayed. Walmart will not make any changes to the sale of violent video games and will continue to sell guns in its stores.
“We’ve taken this action out of respect for the incidents of the past week,” Walmart spokeswoman Tara House said in an email to the Associated Press.
Thomas Marshall, a Walmart employee in San Bruno, California, denounced the memo as a “non-answer and a non-solution.” Marshall assisted in creating a petition with more than 53,000 signatures for the retailer to stop selling guns, which he said the organizers plan to email to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon on Friday.
After the shooting, McMillon pledged the company would be “thoughtful and deliberate in our responses.”
2020 Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren called on Walmart to “stop selling guns” on Friday and dubbed the company “one of the largest gun retailers in the world.”
Companies that sell guns have a responsibility to the safety of their communities. @Walmart is one of the largest gun retailers in the world. The weapons they sell are killing their own customers and employees. No profit is worth those lives. Do the right thing—stop selling guns.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) August 9, 2019
President Trump has insisted that there is a link between violent video games and mass shootings, saying in recent remarks that it is “too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence.”
But no scientific study has independently proven there is a correlation between gun violence and brutal video games, though there has been some research that suggests violence in video games can escalate a person’s physical aggression.
“Scant evidence has emerged that makes any causal or correlation connection between playing violent video games and actually committing violent activities,” the American Psychological Association said.
