our focus as it relates to firearms should be hunters and people who shoot sporting clays and things like that, so the types of rifles we sell, the types of ammunition we sell, should be curated for those things. so about two months later walmart comes out and says no more assault rifles on our shelves. now, interestingly, walmart said it had a lot more to do with slumping demand than any political. they weren t selling? that s what walmart says, but, of course, it won t release the data, which we asked for. of course, because everywhere else noted they are selling. cnn money had a fascinating article about fbi background checks. i think the number was somewhere around 20 million background checks for guns this year, which is a pretty good indication of gun sales, somewhere near a record. absolutely right, we re on track to hit a record this year and as you point out, fbi background checks are a proxy for gun sales. not only that, black friday this year hit a record for the
stop selling military-style semiautomatic weapons, including ar-15s. walmart made that announcement on the same day two journalists were gunned down. gun control advocates have been fighting for this, but listen to what walmart s ceo told us recently. our focus as it relates to firearms should be hunters and people who shoot sporting clays and things like that, so the types of rifles we sell, the types of ammunition we sell should be curated for those things and we believe in serving those customers. we have for a long time a we believe we should continue to. to be clear, gun sales have been strong this summer. the fbi conducted 1.6 million background checks in july alone. that includes all types of guns. and, no, the killer in virginia did not use an ar-15, but he is another example of a troubled, volatile person able to easily purchase a gun. as the new york times points out, more americans have died from guns in the united states