On Tuesday, Walmart made major announcements propelled by recent mass shootings — one of which occurred at the chain’s El Paso location (here, here, and here).

Following that tragedy — which took 22 lives — the retail giant will no longer sell handgun or short-barrel rifle ammo. In Alaska, it’ll discontinue its last remnant of handgun sales.

What’s more: America’s most ubiquitous discounter is asking its customers to no longer use their open-carry privilege in-store (here).

Why? Because the employment of such rights has “frightened or concerned [their] associates and customers.”

Well, the NRA has a few words about the ‘Mart’s moves.

From a press release:

“It is shameful to see Walmart succumb to the pressure of the anti-gun elites. Lines at Walmart will soon be replaced by lines at other retailers who are more supportive of America’s fundamental freedoms.”

As per Tuesday’s announcements, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon believes he’s fighting for a better world:

“It’s clear to us that the status quo is unacceptable. We hope that everyone will understand the circumstances that led to this new policy and will respect the concerns of their fellow shoppers and our associates.”

Are most Walmart shoppers — in states where open carry is legal — really scared by the presence of legally-owned firearms — particularly given the fact that 22 unarmed individuals were just slaughtered at a similar store by a bad guy with a gun?

Or is Doug tone deaf?

The NRA thinks Walmart’s ignoring the most direct cause of crime — the criminal:

“Rather than place the blame on the criminal, Walmart has chosen to victimize law-abiding Americans. Our leaders must be willing to approach the problems of crime, violence and mental health with sincerity and honesty.”

Not only did Walmart make its own changes known; it also trumpeted change from Capitol Hill — it wants Congress to legislate gun control:

“We encourage our nation’s leaders to move forward and strengthen background checks and to remove weapons from those who have been determined to pose an imminent danger.”

Doug did, however, also reference social or other types of causes:

“We must also do more, as a country, to understand the root causes that lead to this type of violent behavior. Today, I’m sending letters to the White House and the Congressional leadership that call for action on these common sense measures.”

As for Walmart’s direction, I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising; when NASCAR takes a liberal turn, all bets are off:

View this post on Instagram

NASCAR decided to turn their back on their customer base, joining the likes of Yeti, Dick’s and Under Armour. We were approached by a NASCAR publication eager to earn our business, but after submitting our ad it was immediately rejected, stating that we cannot depict “assault weapons”… whatever those are. We resubmitted the ad after adding a large ‘CENSORED’ bar over the rifle, with a tag reading “This publication rejected our ad”. This too was rejected by NASCAR. They said they did not like that we called them out. We resubmitted a third time, with a tag line reading “Visit www.Dark-Storm.com to find out why!”. This was again rejected. They did not like the words “FIND OUT WHY”. As we have learned, NASCAR has made a “gradual shift” but this doesn’t seem very gradual to us. It seems as though NASCAR has turned their back on the overwhelming majority of their fan base in the most embarrassing way possible. #nascar

A post shared by Dark Storm Industries (@darkstormindustries) on Aug 23, 2019 at 7:05pm PDT

In the face of dwindling viewership NASCAR has apparently decided to antagonize their core demo https://t.co/gnC0uliCVf pic.twitter.com/2zodJBlJTT

— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) August 30, 2019

Here’s the NRA’s full statement:

"It is shameful to see @Walmart succumb to the pressure of the anti-gun elites. Lines at Walmart will soon be replaced by lines at other retailers who are more supportive of America’s fundamental freedoms."

Read @NRA's statement on Walmart's decision here: pic.twitter.com/bmwAS9o0KP

— NRA (@NRA) September 3, 2019

-ALEX

Relevant RedState links in this article: here, here, here, and here.

See 3 more pieces from me:

Unfathomable: Alyssa Milano Tweets For Gun Control, Pulls The Trigger Against Basic Common Sense

Pat Sajak Reminds Us Of The Omniscience Of Celebrity But Drops A Bomb, & This Roundup Of His Tweets’ll Do You Right

Stop What You’re Doing, Put Your Worries Aside, & Let This Child Sing – She Has A Message We Need To Hear

Find all my RedState work here.

And please follow Alex Parker on Twitter and Facebook.

Thank you for reading! Please sound off in the Comments section below. 

If you have an iPhone and want to comment, select the box with the upward arrow at the bottom of your screen; swipe left and choose “Request Desktop Site.” If it fails to automatically refresh, manually reload the page. Scroll down to the red horizontal bar that says “Show Comments.”