Walmart is joining a swelling group of companies that have thrown in stock with gun control advocates. The retail giant has announced its decision to raise its firearms sales age to 21 years old.

“In light of recent events, we’ve taken an opportunity to review our policy on firearm sales,” the company said in a statement. “Going forward, we are raising the age restriction for purchase of firearms and ammunition to 21 years of age. We will update our processes as quickly as possible to implement this change.”

“In 2015, Walmart ended sales of modern sporting rifles, including the AR-15,” the Walmart statement continued. “We also do not sell handguns, except in Alaska where we feel we should continue to offer them to our customers. Additionally, we do not sell bump stocks, high-capacity magazines and similar accessories. We have a process to monitor our eCommerce marketplace and ensure our policies are applied.”

“We take seriously our obligation to be a responsible seller of firearms and go beyond Federal law by requiring customers to pass a background check before purchasing any firearm. The law would allow the sale of a firearm if no response to a background check request has been received within three business days, but our policy prohibits the sale until an approval is given,” the statement read.

“We are also removing items from our website resembling assault-style rifles, including nonlethal airsoft guns and toys. Our heritage as a company has always been in serving sportsmen and hunters, and we will continue to do so in a responsible way.”

Walmart follows Dick’s Sporting Goods, whose CEO Edward Stack told CNN that his company would cease selling “assault-style” rifles and would increase its selling age minimum to 21 years old. However, the company had widely discontinued such sales following the Sandy Hook shooting and only extended the policy to a few dozen Field & Stream stores.

The retail stores add their names to a list of corporations who have caved to pressure from gun control activists in the aftermath of the Parkland mass shooting. The National Rifle Association lost corporate sponsors, namely Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Norton Antivirus, LifeLock, MetLife, Alamo, National Car Rental and SimpliSafe, after the tragedy.

According to a Politico ‘Morning Consult’ survey, corporate sponsors that withdrew support from the NRA had a net favorability loss of between two and eighteen points. A Rasmussen poll also showed that fifty-four percent of Americans believe  the Parkland mass shooting was more the fault of government failure than guns.

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Kyle Becker

Chief Editor at BizPacReview

Before becoming Chief Editor at BizPac Review, Kyle was the Sr. Managing Editor and Director of Viral Media at Top 25 News & Politics website IJReview. With distinctive headlines and unique storytelling, he amassed hundreds of millions of story pageviews and led a team that generated billions of pageviews. Kyle also speaks fluent Russian and worked as an editor in Moscow before getting his Master's degree in International Studies.

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