OMG! Wal-Mart Being Voluntarily Responsible???

**Athena** · April 15th, 2008, 04:10 PM

I'm waiting for the Prius drivers and granola crunchers to start keeling over...With my fingers crossed. ;)

Wal-Mart toughens gun policies
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer
Mon Apr 14, 6:29 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Wal-Mart, the nation's largest seller of firearms, announced Monday it will toughen rules for gun sales, from storing video of purchases to creating an internal log of which guns they sell that are later used in crimes.

J.P. Suarez, the chief compliance officer for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., appeared with outspoken gun control advocate Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York to announce the changes at a gathering of Bloomberg's group Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Changes to come at about 1,100 Wal-Mart stores selling guns include:

_Creating a record and alert system to record when a gun sold at Wal-Mart is later used in a crime. If the purchaser of that gun later tries to buy another gun at Wal-Mart, the system would alert the sales clerk of the prior buy and could refuse to make the sale.

_Retaining the recorded images of gun sales in case law enforcement wants to view them later as part of an investigation.

_Expanding background checks of employees who handle guns and expanding inventory controls.

Suarez said the tougher standards will come with some additional cost to the company.

"The costs are, we think, part of what it takes to be responsible. Everything is not pain-free," he said, adding that small sellers can implement many of the same rules. He did not say how long it would take to implement all the changes, but noted that software must still be created for an internal log of guns later used in crimes.

Full article

_______________

Imagine that. The evil empire, Wal-Mart, is taking a more accoutable stance on gun sales, despite the fact that it will cost them some money to do so, because it is, "part of what it takes to be responsible".

I see this as a win-win situation. I'm happy because this is not the result of some government mandate and helps illustrate that the market will work to regulate itself and anti-gun people can be happy because, well, the NRA is UNhappy. :p

**TXChris** · April 15th, 2008, 04:48 PM

Haha! Anti-gun people will never be happy until guns are gone completely.

**Athena** · April 15th, 2008, 04:51 PM

Well then, I'm afraid anti-gun people will simply never be happy. Not in this lifetime, anyway.

That being said, they still ought to take some comfort in this.

**TXChris** · April 15th, 2008, 04:54 PM

That's the idea. They'll never be happy. I bet if guns were ever completely destroyed they'd find another thing to harp on. Oh, I don't know, garden hose probably because it can be used to kill a person also. :p

**Athena** · April 15th, 2008, 05:29 PM

I can certainly sympathize with the anti-gun perspective. This article is about my 13 year old cousin, Alex. His 16 year old brother, Johnny, found his father's gun and, in handling it, accidentally discharged it, severing Alex's spinal cord. The bullet continued into the bathroom where my aunt was taking a shower, but was very luckily stopped by the metal bar on the sliding door of the shower. Alex died from his injuries. I visited them a year after the incident, and what I encountered was a shell of the family I once knew.

Just a couple years ago, David, my aunt's husband, killed himself via, you guessed it, handgun, after the grief of his son's death became too much for him. He had scrolled, "I'm coming, Alex" on the wall before he did it. The whole situation is tragedy on a scale I can't even grasp.

That being said, I won't allow my emotion regarding this issue to dictate my opinion. People have the right to defend themselves, and the relatively small percentage of accidental shootings should not change that.

However, I would like to see a society with fewer guns and more educated gun owners. That's why I'm pleased to see the market taking a more responsible approach to selling firearms.