Walmart Will End the Selling of Guns in New Mexico

Last week, the state decided to widen background checks for almost all firearms, and people are going to need a licensed trader in order to make it possible to get them in the first place. Due to this decision, Walmart made a decision to stop selling guns in New Mexico at the end of this month.

A seller from Arkansas, Bentonville, has by now carried out background checks for firearms it offers for sale in 34 licensed stores in the state. A spokesperson of the company pointed out that they are worried that the law, which was enacted on July 1, will require them to facilitate arrangements of weapons that they didn’t sell. So that implies that people can come to the shop with a gun, an assault rifle, or a handgun that they bought somewhere else and then register it at their shop.

A Walmart spokesperson announced that Walmart doesn’t offer pistols and assault rifles for sale and that workers in their stores aren’t taught how to deal with them. There’s only one exclusion, and that is in Alaska, where this store sells pistols to this day. What’s more, the spokesperson added that the seller was worried that they would frighten customers with firearms because some of them didn’t hope to see weapons in their stores.

A director of communication at Walmart, Tiffany Wilson, pointed out in a statement that the new law regarding firearms in New Mexico was going to expect of Walmart stores there to carry out background checks for individual transfers, as well as that their stores are not meant to do that because of safety risks. She said in addition that Walmart made a decision to hand over its federal firearms license and stop selling them in their store in New Mexico.

Giffords Law Center reported that apart from New Mexico, 12 other states and the District of Columbia demand background checks on all weaponry that is purchased at stores. Wilson said that this was the first time that Walmart had reassessed the sale of firearms like this after alterations in the state law.

Attracting Unfriendly Attention

Chief counsel at the Giffords Law Center, Adam Skaggs, asserted that other legislation regarding gun laws in some states do not touch upon what federal firearms licensees do to carry out background checks.

Also, the law regarding background checks in New Mexico instructs that a licensee can’t resist doing a background check. Before this law was enacted, Walmart did perform background checks in New Mexico, but only on its own weapons.

This law attracted a lot of unfriendly attention in the whole nation, namely when Gov. Lujan Grisham ratified the background checks legislation in New Mexico — it wasn’t welcomed heartily in some regions of the state.

Twenty-six out of 33 counties in this state have taken in resolutions and said that they didn’t plan on spending resources on any kind of law that their sheriffs regard as unlawful. Nearly 30 sheriffs declared that they were not going to enact this legislation, saying that it wouldn’t bear fruit and that it wasn’t lawful.

Skaggs asserted that this law was debatable and that there were advocates who endorse guns, as well as those who want to make a fuss out of this. He concluded by stating that Walmart doesn’t plan to be in the center of that fiasco.

Wilson pointed out that, in contrast to the stores where customers are able to see many types of weapons, Walmart customers weren’t used to seeing other people carrying guns around the store.

Purchasing of Weaponry Stops on July 22

Just like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Walmart has decreased their engagement in firearms already, stopping all purchases of semi-automatic rifles, for example, the AR-15. Wilson made it known that Walmart ceased selling weapons in Delaware and California as these laws have been enforced there.

Walmart’s officials announced that the sales of weapons in New Mexico would be put to an end as of July 22. Also, every weapon that is left in their stores will be sent to those in other states, and ammunition is going to be sold in New Mexico.