Learning Outcomes
Students should apply knowledge of corporate strategy, decision-making, ethics,
communications, and public relations to evaluate and discuss the recent decisions from
major retailers. Students should assess how this might impact company performance
and how it might influence other retailers to take similar—or different—paths. Students
should also contemplate what a company’s ethical responsibility toward public safety is.
The Issue
On September 3, 2019, Walmart stepped into the national gun debate spotlight when it
announced that customers would be asked to refrain from openly carrying firearms in its
stores. The retailer also made the decision to stop selling ammunition that can be used
in military-style assault rifles, and said it would call on Congress to increase background
checks and consider a new assault rifle ban.
The announcement came one month after two Walmart shootings occurred—one in El
Paso, Texas, that killed 22 people and injured at least 27 others, and one in Southaven,
Mississippi, where an employee killed two coworkers and wounded an officer. “We
know these decisions will inconvenience some of our customers, and we hope they will
understand. As a company, we experienced two horrific events in one week, and we will
never be the same,” Walmart’s press release stated.
In 2013, Starbucks was one of the first retailers to ask customers not to bring weapons
into its stores, and Target followed suit in 2014. Asking customers instead of outright
banning open-carry can allow national retailers to send a strong message while also
navigating the requirements for restricting firearms that vary from state to state. The
new policies, though contentious in the eyes of some, occupy a sort of middle ground.
Why Is It News?
For Walmart, the world’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer and the fourth largest seller of
guns in the United States, to make this announcement is a powerful statement on the
issue of gun control. Other major retailers have followed suit. Walgreens, Kroger, CVS,
and Wegmans have all issued statements asking, but not outright banning, customers
to refrain from openly carrying firearms into their stores.
In spite of the National Rifle Association calling the move “shameful,” the decision
signals that open-carry has become bad for business. In a New York Times article, Dr.
Michael Siegel, a professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health, compared
the discouragement of open-carry to restaurants banning smoking.
“It begins to make guns seem less socially acceptable,” said Dr. Siegel. “And it starts to
change the public’s perception that the gun industry is too powerful to challenge. People
used to say the same thing about Big Tobacco.”
Discussion Questions
• 1.
How does—or doesn’t—Walmart’s strategic decision fit with its clientele?
Considering the shootings that preceded Walmart’s policy change, is it in
the company’s best interests in terms of liability to reduce inventory and
discourage open-carry?
• 2.
Do you think Walmart’s decision will continue to impact other major
retailers whose inventory includes guns or gun-related products?
• 3.
What are the merits or drawbacks of companies making decisions that
can be interpreted as political statements? Do you think retailers’ strategy
of asking customers to refrain from openly carrying firearms—rather than
explicitly banning them—is enough of a middle ground?
• 4.
Do retailers have a responsibility to limit certain inventory, or to issue
mandates on what customers can or cannot bring into stores?
Acknowledgment