The Walmarts in my area no longer sell guns. I have to wonder who got to them.

They stopped selling guns years ago in CA

It depends on where you live I believe. Wal-Mart stopped selling guns in Northern Virginia a little more than a year ago if I remember correctly, but they still sell ammunition. In other parts of Virginia you can still buy Rifles I believe.

The Walmart in Tomball, TX still has a gun department. I've been eyeing their little pink .22 Cricket rifle for my girls. None of the other Walmarts in the area carry guns but they all do still carry ammo.

-Blast

I just find it hard to believe that they are doing it for financial reasons. In Minnesota, there are millions of duck, phesant, grouse, squirrel, and deer hunters. Anytime I went into the hunting department, there were a lot of people there. I'm suspicious that they caved in to some kind of bureauocratic pressure from the feds.

Where I am in PA the three Walmarts in the area stopped selling firearms about 4 years ago. Now they only sell ammo and accessories.

By my parents house in NJ the Walmart has never sold firearms/ ammo/firearms accessories and has stopped selling pocket knives since last year. They also don't sell airguns (which are treated the same as regular firearms under NJ law).

The two Wal-Mart’s stores in Frederick, Maryland still sell guns (at least they did last week). I suspect that more people may be going to gun shows, gun stores and larger outdoor retailers like BassPro and Cabela’s to make their purchases from more knowledgeable/dedicated sales staff, than those in Wal-Mart. With ammo, the store doesn’t require an educated staff; most people know what they want and the sales are more consistent.

Pete

I work at Walmart.

My hometown store sells guns and ammo. From what I have heard there, not all stores carry them. IIRC there are a couple main reasons why. Sales: the profit level has to be there, if the store sells a lot of ammo but not many guns, they will pull the whole section and put better selling items there. When my store was remodeled a couple of years ago there was talk of removing the gun counter. The question was placed to the store manager and she responded "We get to keep the the gun counter, the sales are pretty good."

Other reason is liability/p.c. measures. After the school shootings there was a media circus. I am thinking about "Bowling for Colembine" There was a trend for retailers to drop guns/ammo sales. The public outcry against K-mart, because the ammo came from there, made an impression. At Wally World, with there spin-doctors, they look at it from more than just sales though. In my area there is a tremendous amount of deer hunting, and during the season we will sell out of ammo, and most of our guns. so the huge two to three month sales boost is worth the possible hit they could take in public opinion. But it would only take one person to get on the news decrying them and IMO they would pull the counter within a day or so.

If you get the sense that I do not have a high opinion of the upper levels of Walmart,correct! For all of there marketing genius, there is a trend away from service to profit.

Just my .02 cents.

The Wal-Mart that I usually visit here in Middle Tennessee carries both Guns (a few Shotguns and .22 Rifles, I believe) and Ammo.
I think all of the Wal-Mart stores in this area have Guns and Ammo.

They seem to have a hard time keeping Ammo in stock here. The ammo showcase is usually more than half empty, and they always have a "2 box limit" on Ammo purchases.

The three here all are selling shooting supplies, ammo and guns. I've noticed their product turnover in those departments has been quite brisk.

We had a gun show here last weekend, the place was more packed than I've ever seen it. What do it mean?

It's nothing more than an economic decision. If the guns cost more to sell due to licensing and record-keeping requirements, they don't sell them. This is typically at a state level.

I buy my guns from a local guy - I prefer the small dealer anyway. yeah, I pay a few bucks more, but I think it's worth the money to help my local economy.

They built a new wal-mart (relatively) where I used to live, it got a glass case of Ammo, and their own register. It must be profitable in this area For the last 2 years they've also had a hard time keeping anything in stock. Must be working for them.

I have seen the security set-up at my store. pretty much from the moment you park you are on dvd quality video. I work in the Tire and Lube Express, and if there is an infraction of a rule or damage done to a car they (managers and security) review the "tapes." when the employee who is in the hot seat is called into the office, if there is any problem or objection they are shown the playback (in the security room), thats how i know.

To buy a gun at my store, you must get a background check. there has been two guys that i have seen get arrested trying to buy a gun that had outstanding warrants. They ran the check, set up a time for they guys to come in to buy their gun, and LEP were there instead. For ammo you are required to show i.d. but only your birth date is entered in the computer (register) and most of the time they don't even do that. Based on what i could see of the video system there they have the capability to zoom in on the id, but i don't think that it would be readable without special software. I could read my badge though.

as mentioned before, I work at Walmart.

I have one WalMart in my close-area that sells rifles (VERY limited inventory of only inexpensive stuff), but the vast majority of the other WalMarts only sell ammo and accessories. I have yet to run into a WalMart around here that did NOT have an ammo section. That doesn't mean they actually have any ammo in stock, only that they have shelf space to put it on should any ever show up. :-(

Topic Joke: DONT TRY THIS! While holding and examining guns in the sporting goods dept. with a sad distraught face, look at the clerk after your purchase and ask where they keep the anti-depression meds. and see the reaction you get.

A text message i got, had this in it so hopefully some of you got a laugh out of it.

Selling firearms puts a pretty steep burden on the store.

Guns have to be accounted for at all times and kept in a secure area. The paperwork requirements are not insignificant. Sale of a single gun can take a half-hour or more even for a well trained and experiences clerk. The paperwork has to be filled out properly, information sent to the right places, and maintained in good order.

All this requires that there will be enough trained people for two or three shifts per store. Plus some extra for no-shows and turnover in the slightly over the minimum wage, high turnover, workforce. Every one of these requirements costs time and money and these extra expenses have to be considered when deciding how profitable selling guns really is.

The odds are that the profit margins are usually higher selling vitamins and tightie-whities than firearms. You make less on each purchase but the retail store invests less in time and money to sell them.

Wally World, like most major retailers, calculate their profits in terms of profit per square foot of floor space. They often rejigger their array of goods not so much by what sells and what doesn't, even though that is included, so much as what makes the most profit per unit space occupied. Cheap one and two dollar Chinese gewgaws are very profitable because they only cost the retailer a few cents each and impulse buyers snap them up by the thousands.

They seem to have a hard time keeping Ammo in stock here. The ammo showcase is usually more than half empty, and they always have a "2 box limit" on Ammo purchases. [/quote]


I talked to a friend of mine who is a manager at Gander Mountain, a regional big box sporting goods retailer like Bass Pro Shops. He told me that guns and ammo (especially ammo) sales skyrocketed right around the Nov 2008 election, and have continued very strong ever since.