Pope Francis On Gun Violence

Today, Pope Francis, as part of his visit to the United States, addressed the U.S. Congress.

As part of his address, he decried the "shameful and culpable silence" on arms sales "drenched in innocent blood."

America leads the world in arms sales.  From the full transcript of his address:

Being at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world. Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.

Though he was addressing primarily international gun sales, I believe his statement could just as easily be applied to domestic gun sales by U.S. gun manufacturers.

It is incredibly clear, from statements made by the NRA and other gun lobbies, and the way the gun manufacturers manipulate our government and gun owners, that money is the bottom line, with no regard at all to the safety of the common people in the wake of continued gun violence and deaths in the U.S.  Gun sales, and the profits and lobbyist money they bring in, reign supreme.

From another article, which also addressed the military-industrial weapons sector:

Those were fighting words, especially given where he spoke them. The U.S. is by far the largest arms supplier in the world, with domestic manufacturers selling more than $23.7 billion in weapons in 2014 to nearly 100 different countries. During the Obama administration, weapons sales have surged to record levels, in large part due to huge shipments to Gulf States, particularly Saudi Arabia. 

The weapons sales to Saudi Arabia include cluster bombs and other munitions being used to hit densely populated areas, schools, and even a camp for displaced people in Yemen. 

And a healthy chunk of those arms sales — especially to Israel and Egypt — are heavily subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer.

Our leaders should take the words of Pope Francis to heart.  The welfare of our people MUST be more important than the profits of gun manufacturers!
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Walmart halts sale of assault rifles and sniper rifles!

Below is what was posted at the Walmart Shootings blog:


After years of pressure by gun violence prevention groups and victims, not to mention increases in at least the last three years, Walmart has announced that it is discontinuing sales of assault rifles and sniper rifles in its stores.  This is a tremendous success for common sense!

gun crimes and shootings at its stores for

Up until this, Walmart had sold five different models of assault rifles.  Some of these have been used in shootings on Walmart property or have been stolen from the store counters.

Walmart continues to sell shotguns, hunting rifles, and ammunition, as well as realistic-looking airguns, and they still allow people to carry concealed handguns in their stores.

From an article:

The world’s largest retailer will stop stocking AR-15s and other modern sporting rifles (MSRs) as it resets its stores with fall merchandise, a Walmart spokesman confirmed to Quartz on Wednesday. The company will replace the rifles (carried in less than a third of its stores) with shotguns and other hunting weapons.

The move comes in the midst of a national gun debate fueled by high-profile shootings involving the weapon, including Adam Lanza in the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, James Holmes in the Colorado theater shooting, and the Los Angeles Airport shooting where a Transportation Security Administration officer was shot and killed.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation says modern sporting rifles are among the most popular firearms being sold in America.

Walmart claims the move was a "business decision" and not due to pressure, but assault rifles continue to be a hot commodity with the gun guys, so I think we all know what the truth is here.  There has been a lot of outcry, including petitions like HERE and HERE.

Seattle Has Enacted A Tax On Firearms and Ammo Sales

Below is a guest blog post from Penny Okamoto, Executive Director of Ceasefire Oregon:


On August 10, the Seattle City Council unanimously approved to tax the sale of firearms and ammunition. From the article:

The council adopted the tax - patterned after a similar measure in Cook County, Illinois - on an 8-0 vote. The tax amounts to $25 for each firearm sold in the city, plus 5 cents per round for nearly every type of ammunition. The revenue would be used for gun safety research and gun violence prevention programs. 

The council also unanimously passed a companion measure to require mandatory reporting of lost or stolen firearms. Mayor Ed Murray said he supports both efforts.

The move came as the city is struggling to reduce gun violence as well as the enormous financial burden of gunshot-related trauma treated at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. 

The direct medical costs of treating 253 gunshot victims at Harborview Medical Center in 2014 totaled more than $17 million. Taxpayers paid more than $12 million of that. City officials estimate that the new tax would bring in $300,000 to $500,000 a year, but gun shop owners told council members those numbers are inflated and that the law would cost them customers and sales. 

The gun shop owners did not comment on the cost of lives lost due to gunshot death.

The direct cost of gun violence in America is $8.6 billion (such as emergency responder costs, court costs, and victim treatment).  87% of the direct costs is paid by taxpayers, mostly for imprisonment of convicted shooters. 

Add to that $221 billion in indirect costs (such as victims' lost wages and quality of life).

How much does the gun lobby pay to cover that cost? $0.00.

Americans pay, directly and indirectly, an exorbitant cost for gun violence while the gun lobby, including the National Rifle Association, acquit themselves of any responsibility. The American tax payer foots the bill  for medical care, extra police, long-term care of the seriously injured and care for those who are shot but not insured.

We pay when we give up the freedom to go to the movies or a shopping mall because we worry about yet another person who easily got a gun he never should have had.

We pay when our sisters, daughters, aunts and mothers are intimidated into silence and into staying in abusive relationships at the point of a gun. 

We pay for gun violence in America every time we are afraid to go into public, every time we don't go to a movie, every time we decide to not go to a shopping mall, every time we worry about sending our kids to school, every time we worry that a loved one might commit suicide.

Any responsible gun owner would gladly pay a tax to help reduce gun violence. 

Frankly, I don't care if gun owners are losing a few gun sales. 

The Gun Bubble Has Burst

Do you remember the massive rush on guns and ammo? 

(source)

Who could forget?  After the Sandy Hook shooting, the NRA whipped gun owners into a frenzy of fear that assault weapons, and guns in general, would be banned and confiscated.  Their followers immediately ran out and purchased all the ammo and rifles they could manage to afford.  In many places, guns and ammo couldn’t be stocked fast enough.  AR-15’s were the hottest items, since they were the item of most loathing of anyone who was shocked at how many children had been killed so quickly.   Gun manufacturers made record profits.

The NRA made sure to blame President Obama as the figure most responsible for the firearms confiscations that were sure to be just around the corner, and the NRA followers responded amazingly.  As I blogged about a little over a year ago, the sales of these guns and ammo weren’t to new owners, but rather already-existing gun owners, for the most part, as the percentage of homes with guns continues to fall, and factors such as less interest in hunting and competition for interest in younger generations are making guns less appealing of a market.  In other words, gun owners are becoming a minority. 

When the gun guys wound up buying up all the available ammo, guess who they blamed for the problem?  That’s right, they blamed President Obama.  It’s a government conspiracy to buy up and stockpile the ammo, in order to drive up prices!  Another pro-gun conspiracy theory had it that government agencies were buying up the ammo in order to declare martial law and take away gun rights!  Of course, none of the gun guys pointed their fingers at the real source of the ammo and gun shortage:  themselves, for buying them, or the weapons manufacturers, who controlled the production.

When the gun ban and confiscation boogeyman didn’t materialize, the NRA was quick with another conspiracy theory:  in their twisted mind, the LACK of a ban and Obama's lack of action was evidence that a ban would be coming and that the Second Amendment was under attack.  (Don’t you love how Obama is always the focus of pro-gun conspiracy theories?).

Flash-forward to today.  Gun owners have bought all they can afford, and the market is once again saturated.  Ammo can be used up, but guns sold these days are most likely to outlive their owners.   Yes, some people with a real fetish for them will continue to build their own personal arsenal, but most gun owners don’t care to waste their money on it, just to titillate their trigger fingers.

As the Huffington Post recently reported, gun owners aren’t as worried about the old NRA line about the government banning all guns or confiscating them. 

After a year and a half of stockpiling weapons and ammunition, a buying binge that sent gun company stocks soaring, weapons enthusiasts seem to have realized that President Barack Obama and his allies in Congress are not, in fact, going to take away their guns.   …. 

But even the most paranoid gun buyers are starting to understand that Washington will be unable to do anything anytime soon to stem the flow of school shootings -- of which there have been 74 since Sandy Hook.

According to a CNN article:

After that [Sandy Hook] shooting, demand got crazy, said John Reids, owner of JT Reids Gun Shop in Auburn, Maine. "We couldn't keep up with it."

Reids had to hire extra workers to handle the sales spike. Guns were sold as soon as they arrived from the distributors.

Now, assault rifles are available for as little as $375 at some of the top online gun retailers like Gunbroker.com and CheaperThanDirt.com.

"Nearly all firearms have returned to prices seen prior to the Sandy Hook tragedy," said Dennis Pratte, owner of My Gun Factory, a store in Falls Church, Virginia. At the time, he recalls, customers were calling about assault rifles "every 10 seconds." ....

"I believe what happened is that everybody who wanted to buy one did," said Fernwood Firearms' John Kielbasa. "Now it's a buyer's market."

And now, after the gun bubble has burst, stocks for the gun manufacturers are sliding:

In its financial report released last Thursday, Smith & Wesson reported a 4.6 percent decline in profits for its fourth quarter, compared to last year. The company is also predicting lower demand for the coming year.

According to Bloomberg.com, financial analysts think that fears of tighter gun legislation have stalled, which is leading to fewer people buying guns. 

"Demand for modern sporting rifles has fallen off significantly following the post-Newton [sic] legislation-driven demand and the ensuing post-surge period," said Chris Krueger, an analyst at Lake Street Capital Markets, in a note to clients. "Long gun sales will decline about 25 percent in FY2015 and become a smaller percentage of Smith & Wesson's sales." 

Dean Lockwood, a weapons systems analyst at the market research firm Forecast International, told The Huffington Post that gun owners "have gotten over the panic buying stage and are back to a more normal level."

Now, gun stores are losing sales.  Those who invested heavily during the boom are now about to go bust.  Consider the case of one Texas gun store, in the little town of Katy.  Tactical Firearms now faces foreclosure as a result.  But instead of blaming themselves for poor management, or trying to appeal to their customers, they blame it on, of course, President Obama:

Tactical Firearms, the Katy gun store known for its snarky marquees that mock everything from President Obama to gun control could soon be out of ammo and out of business.

“Right now our second amendment is under attack,” said Jeremy Alcede, co-owner of Tactical Firearms. 

Their latest marquee claims Obama and Icon Bank are “trying to end them” on July 1st.
“We’ll lose everything, 150 people will be affected,” said Alcede. “They count on this job, we’re one big family.” 

Icon Bank is set to foreclose on Tactical Firearms next week. The bank said the gun store’s loan is in default, but the gun shop said this is about politics. ....

 But KHOU learned of a new twist. Alcede, the same man accepting donations online is being sued by his business partner Coe Wilson for allegedly taking money from the business an using it for personal purchases like a Caribbean vacation and jewelry. 

“He’s blamed the President of all people for his problems, when he should be blaming himself,” said Richard Nguyen, who represents Coe Wilson. “Jeremy has mismanaged funds to the detriment of the company.” 

Tactical Firearms denied the allegations.

Hmmm….. allegations of mismanagement and poor financial conduct.  But, but…. Obama!  Second Amendment!

Hey, gun guys, instead of blaming President Obama, how about putting the blame where it really lies:  a runaway problem of gun violence and a culture that places more value on gun rights and gun sales than on protecting the welfare of our people.  We as a nation need to stop drinking the NRA Kool-Aid and wake up to the need for commonsense gun regulation.  100,000 shootings a year, with 32,000 deaths, are too many to ignore!


ADDENDUM:  Another blogger sums it up pretty well:

Bud buys a handgun, as his paranoid friend Ted tells him "Obama is going to take away all our guns!".   And Ted says that spending Saturday afternoon at the range is "a lot of fun".   So Bud buys a handgun and ammunition at the local gun shop and spends a few weekends with Ted at the range.   At first it seems like fun and all, meeting new friends, and the thrill of firing a weapon.

But eventually, the thrill fades, and the cost of ammunition (inflated by the "shortage") starts to spoil the thrill a bit.   And Bud starts to realize that Ted has a lot of scary friends, and moreover, he has better things to do with his money.   So the Buds of the world lose interest, over time, and eventually, Bud decides to sell his handgun on Craigslist, as he needs the money.

I know a few Buds, personally.   Heck, there is a little Bud in all of us - latching on to the latest trendy fad, if just as a dilettante, before moving on to the next trendy thing.   The golf clubs in my garage attest to that.  I've been meaning to get out on the course (we only have four here on the island) but it seems something always comes up.   And suddenly four years go by, with no golfing...

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Graphs Correlating Gun Sales To Gun Violence

(UPDATED: See below)

Take a look at the graphs below.  See anything interesting?

The FBI recently concluded a study that showed a dramatic and steady increase in the number of active shooter incidents.  My understanding is that what they are defining as "active shooter" incidents are high-profile mass shootings.  Not only did the number of these shootings increase, but the number of killed AND injured increased.  While the number of people killed and injured by guns nationwide has slowly increased in the same period, since 2000, it is telling that the greatest increase has been in these mass shootings.

FBI: Active shooter events by year (source)

FBI: Numbers of individuals injured or killed in active shooter incidents (source)

Number of guns to the U.S. population (source)

Mother Jones magazine recently also did a similar analysis of the alarming increase in mass shootings and graphed the results in a similar manner, and had a graph of the shootings, as well as a graph comparing the number of guns to overall U.S. population (to the right).

The gun lobby likes to say that, with more guns in more places, the number of shootings will decrease, since, as they see it in their simple-minded way, a flood of guns on our streets can only lead to the "bad guys" being afraid and not committing crimes, and criminal shootings should decrease.  So I wanted to see for myself.

As the Mother Jones graph at right shows, guns certainly have proliferated, such that there are now more guns in American civilian hands than there are people in the United States.  By the gun lobby, this should make us the safest nation on Earth.  Sadly, we have more civilian shootings than any other advanced nation (and most of the least advanced nations, to boot).

TheWire.com recently had an article which showed some very telling graphs.  It broke down the gun sales by type, and you can see a drastic increase in sales, with data from the ATFE, which seems to mirror the number of active shooter incidents:

ATFE: Gun sales by year and type (source)

By far the greatest increase has been in pistols, but rifles (most likely assault rifles) would come in second.  These sales are also mirrored by the number of increasing background checks by year, using data collected by the FBI:

FBI: Gun background checks by year (source)

Finding data on the number of conceal carry permits that are issues over the same period is proving to be harder, as I haven't found a good source to show this.  But I suspect that most areas, particularly conservative rural areas, would show increases similar to that of these Michigan counties, with data from the Michigan State Police:

Increasing issuance of conceal carry permits in Michigan counties (source)

As I've posted about before, the number of households that own guns is decreasing steadily year after year, which means that the great proliferation of firearms in this country are going to people who are already gun owners.  The gun lobbies and the gun manufacturers who bankroll them are pushing these owners hard to buy more, stoking fears.  But, as these graphs seem to implicate, they only have themselves to fear.

See anything similar between these graphs?  They all have very similar slopes.  That alone doesn't prove anything, and correlation doesn't prove causation, but it certainly is telling to me that something is going on here.  At the very least it demonstrates that increasing gun sales and conceal carry licenses has done nothing to stop the plague of gun violence in America, despite the simplistic, "buy-more-guns" propaganda of the gun lobby.  At worst, it demonstrates that the flood of guns in American hands may have a relationship with the number of mass shootings in America.  Such a correlation seems obvious to me, since it allows weak-minded and violent individuals to more easily get their hands on high-powered killing machines.  But then statistics never sway the gun guys, or the gun lobbies who feed them false information.

ADDENDUM (2/25/14):  On a related note, a recent (2013) study (by Fleegler, et al) showed a very positive and linear relationship between the rate of gun ownership in a state and the number of firearm deaths in that state, as well as a linear relationship between the laxity of gun laws in a state and the number of firearm deaths in that state.  Here is a telling graph from that study:

(source)

Notice that states that have recently been in the news for having new and strict gun regulation (NY, CT, CA, MA) are all very low for gun-related deaths, while states that are extremely lax (AZ, AK, LA) are at the top of the list for firearm-related deaths.  It's no coincidence.

ADDENDUM (7/17/14):  A blog post at Daily Kos has shown a pretty clear comparison and correlation between the number of guns per capita per nation and the number of gun deaths:

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Griffin Dix: Gun Lobby Whistleblower Warned Against Dancing with the Devil

Today we have a guest blogger: Griffin Dix, Ph. D.  Griffin taught Cultural Anthropology at Santa Clara University, was Research Director at MacWEEK and founded a computer industry research and consulting business. After his son was shot and killed in 1994, he represented the national Million Mom March chapters on the Brady Campaign Board. He lives in Kensington, California. The opinions expressed here are his own.


The most important of the current gun violence prevention proposals is to require background checks whenever guns are sold, including by private sellers. In order to investigate gun crimes, law enforcement needs to be able to access the records which will be kept by gun dealers who will carry out the checks. There is overwhelming public support for universal background checks. But recently some in Congress, such as Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, have opposed them.

The gun lobby claims that keeping records of gun purchases could lead to confiscation of firearms. This is the absurd old gun lobby smokescreen to hide the gun lobby's primary goal, which is to sell as many guns as possible to anyone-including criminals.

Don't take my word for it. Just listen to former top gun industry lobbyist, Robert Ricker, who was Executive Director of the American Shooting Sports Council when it was the nation's most influential gun industry trade association. Previously, he was the National Rifle Association's Assistant General Counsel, where he handled all the political matters for its political action committee.

But by 2003 Ricker was publicly admitting things many in the gun industry were adamantly denying. In a declaration in support of plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the gun industry, he said that the industry knew perfectly well that many firearms "pass quickly from licensed dealers to juveniles and criminals through such avenues as straw sales, large-volume sales to gun traffickers and various other channels by corrupt dealers or distributors who go to great lengths to avoid detection by law enforcement authorities." [Download the Brady Campaign report, "Smoking Guns: Exposing the Gun Industry's Complicity in the Illegal Gun Market" See pp.14-22 Insiders Expose Gun Industry Misconduct. http://dev.bradycenter.org/legalaction/bcereports/smokingguns ]

He pulled no punches, saying, "Leaders in the industry have long known that greater industry action to prevent illegal transactions is possible and would curb the supply of firearms to the illegal market."

Ricker explained that instead of requiring dealers to be proactive and properly trained to stop questionable sales, it had been a common practice of gun manufacturers and distributors "to adopt a 'see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil' approach. This type of policy encourages a culture of evasion of firearms laws and regulations."

He also said the industry "has long known that ATF is hampered in its enforcement efforts by inadequate resources and constraints in federal law on its ability to crack down on corrupt dealers." Nonetheless, Ricker said, every year the NRA comes before the appropriations committees on Capitol Hill advocating that ATF's budget be cut.

And why did he see the light? For the same reason that most of us want to make it hard for criminals to buy guns: "I don't want to have to come home some night from the office and have my wife tell me that, 'Your son was shot in a drive-by shooting' or, 'The neighbors' kids were killed.' That's what gets me," he said.

Well, it's still true. The gun industry wants to sell as many guns as possible- including to criminals who are its repeat customers. Don't be misled by the gun lobby's fear mongering. The industry is against universal background checks because they would cut into gun sales-including sales made to criminals by private sellers.

Ricker's advice to powerful politicians was "Stop dancing with the devil."

In his 1973 movie Sleeper, Woody Allen wakes up from routine peptic ulcer surgery 200 years later and quips about the NRA, "They were an organization that helped criminals get guns ."

That could still be true in two hundred years unless we end it right now. "Stop dancing with the devil" is good advice for legislators in 2013.

Tell them loud and clear.

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Gun Sales Boom, But Who's Buying?

We've seen the headlines about booming gun sales: 

"Sales of Guns Soar in U.S. as Nation Weighs Tougher Limits"

"Gun checks soar 39 percent, set new record: FBI"

"Machine gun loophole sees legal sales soar"

"Wal-Mart sells out of some guns due to surging demand"

With headlines like that, it makes it sound like everyone and their brother are running out to be first-time gun buyers.  Why, the percent of the population who own guns must be skyrocketing!

Particularly, sales are souring for assault weapons, which face a potential ban.  From one article:

“If I had 1,000 AR-15s I could sell them in a week,” said Jack Smith, an independent gun dealer in Des Moines, referring to the popular style of semiautomatic rifle that drew national attention after Adam Lanza used one to kill 20 children and 6 adults at a Newtown school. “When I close, they beat on the glass to be let in,” Mr. Smith said of his customers. “They’ll wave money at me.”

From another article: 

"The firearms industry is certainly seeing explosive sales growth in the last several months," Wedbush Securities analyst Rommel Dionisio told Reuters. 

Background checks for firearm sales, mandatory for all purchases made at U.S. gun stores, rose nearly 50 percent year-on-year in December, data from the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System showed. 

This was the highest monthly percentage rise ever reported for a measurement commonly used to gauge the firearm industry's performance. It eclipsed the 30.8 percent rise of November 2012.

These reports of surging gun sales are based only on the FBI reports of background check numbers.  Everyone who buys a gun from a licensed dealer (not a private seller, mind you!) has to have a background check with every sale.  So, yes, sales have soared, but they can't discriminate between first-time buyers and gun nuts with 100 weapons stockpiled in their basement.

Those of us who keep track know better.  These aren't first-time buyers.  These are primarily people who already own guns who are buying into the NRA propaganda that Obama's comin' for your gunzzz.

The truth is almost certainly that the sales are predominantly to prior owners.

Evidence:  Sales of guns have been steadily declining for decades, across a wide swath of different demographics.  As reported in the New York Times (also see graph, at right):

The gun ownership rate has fallen across a broad cross section of households since the early 1970s, according to data from the General Social Survey, a public opinion survey conducted every two years that asks a sample of American adults if they have guns at home, among other questions. 

The rate has dropped in cities large and small, in suburbs and rural areas and in all regions of the country. It has fallen among households with children, and among those without. It has declined for households that say they are very happy, and for those that say they are not. It is down among churchgoers and those who never sit in pews. 

The household gun ownership rate has fallen from an average of 50 percent in the 1970s to 49 percent in the 1980s, 43 percent in the 1990s and 35 percent in the 2000s, according to the survey data, analyzed by The New York Times.

I'm not alone in my feeling about who is buying these guns, by any means.  One who agrees is Daniel Webster, who has studied and published studies on the issue of gun violence for a very long time.  From that same NYT article:

“There are all these claims that gun ownership is going through the roof,” said Daniel Webster, the director of theJohns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. “But I suspect the increase in gun sales has been limited mostly to current gun owners. The most reputable surveys show a decline over time in the share of households with guns.”

Of course, the NRA refutes this theory.  It doesn't help sell guns to point out that their popularity is declining.  But every other entity who has polled the public on the issue or studied it in any way has found a comparable trend.

Suggested reasons for the decline?  A steady decline in hunting, more urbanization of the population, changing demographics, and generally lower rate of violent crimes in most areas.  The decline is also age-related, with younger people declining in ownership faster.

So to all you gun nuts out there who buy into the NRA propaganda and are stocking up your arsenal:  you are increasingly fringe in your fetish.  Buying up all the guns you can handle succeeds in only one thing: emptying your pocketbooks and proving that you are paranoid.

A year of Walmart Shootings: 2012

(This is a cross-post from the Walmart Shootings blog, HERE.)

(image from Per's Decent Blog)

When I started the Walmart Shootings blog, it was to chronicle what has become a sad fact: the retail giant Walmart, the number one retailer of guns and ammo in the United States, and possibly the world, has a higher rate of shootings and gun crimes on its properties than any other “big box” retailer in the nation.

As I have chronicled on this blog, Walmart had 53 shootings reported in the media in 2012.  That’s more than one a week, on average.  HERE is a listing of those incidents.  Though I didn’t look carefully until recently, I also found 21 other gun crimes where shots weren’t fired.  That’s at least 74 incidents in at least 28 states. 

Crimes and shootings included armed robberies, customers angry at each other, shoplifters (including of assault weapons!), road rage, law enforcement encounters, drug deals gone wrong, and even suicides.  Twice there were accidental shootings, both times by gun owners with legal conceal carry permits.

I found 8 homicides, 25 attempted homicides or aggravated assaults with guns, 2 gang-related incidents, 3 drug-related events, 18 armed robberies, 11 shoplifting incidents, 2 accidents, 10 law-enforcement related incidents, and at least one murder/suicide (some of these categories overlap).  There were also two plots for mass murders at Walmarts.

48 incidents were in the parking lots.  24 were inside the stores.  2 were at Walmart gas stations attached to the parking lots. 

In 2005, a movie was released entitled “Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices.”  You can see on YouTube, embedded below.  For their abysmal record on shootings and assaults, watch timeframe 1:16:11 - 1:25:06.  At timepoint 1:19, note that Walmart did their own internal study and found that 80% of assaults happened in their parking lots.  When they posted a roving guard in the parking lot, incidents dropped to nearly zero.  And yet, Walmart squashed the study and did not change their national policy regarding policing of their parking lots other than additional security cams.  No surprise, then, that here at Walmart Shootings we found that there is nearly twice the rate of incidents in the parking lots than inside stores in 2012.

It leaves you wondering.  Why Walmart?  What is it about Walmart stores that attracts gun crimes?  Is it their lax policy toward guns (they allow conceal carry in all stores, complicit with state gun law, are the number one retailer of guns in America, and even sell assault rifles).  Other retail giants, like Target, Kmart, and Costco almost never have gun crimes occur on their properties, so the issue isn’t just related to number of stores.  Or is it something about the clientele that Walmart sells to?  I don’t have an answer to these questions – seeking the answers is why this blog is here.

In the meantime, as we go into 2013, shop carefully if you go to your local Walmart.  There might be a Walmart Shooting coming to a store near you.

Remember:

Walmart.  Save money.  Die faster.