Walmart ceases to sell certain ammunition and hanguns. . . .

which is a good thing for local retailers.

No serious sportsman or shooter buys firearms or ammunition on any sort of routine basis from Walmart.  Indeed, that same statement can be said about a lot of things, when bought by the serious.  I'm sure, for example, that you can buy fishing poles and cameras from Walmart, but a serious fisherman or a serious photographer doesn't buy them there.  Walmart sells most of its items of that type to people who are in a very general market.

By the same token, a person who is expecting any kind of expertise on anything also doesn't buy that thing at Walmart.  If you go into Walmart and ask the clerk behind the cameras the relative difference between Canon DSLR cameras vs. their full frame DSLR camera, you might get an answer, but it would be fairly absurd to rely upon it.  If you go in and see a camera you already knew you wanted to buy, that'd be another matter, but chances are if you are going in to buy something of that nature, you are already going elsewhere.

So too with firearms and ammunition.

I don't recall any serious shooter speaking of buying a firearm or ammunition at Walmart, ever.  Indeed, I've heard complaints from shooters regarding the chain sporting goods stores that somewhat resemble big box stores.  Stocking shotgun slugs might make sense in Michigan, for example, but not in Wyoming, Colorado, or Montana.  But the big box outfits don't know that.

So when a person goes into a Walmart to buy a firearm, they're really risking flying blind on that purchase.  I suppose that Walmart stocks all the common ammunition for hunting and probably people do go there if they couldn't find it elsewhere, but I never hear of people doing that.

There was a time, I'd note, when this was in fact a bit different.  People did buy some basic firearms and ammunition at Sears and Montgomery Wards at one time.  They've long since ceased offering firearms, but they did do that.  Kmart actually used to offer them as well (and still might. . . I haven't been in a Kmart for years).  But when Walmart entered the picture, something about its enormity removed the personal touch that certain types of purchases seem to require.  Indeed, while I'm not surprised that people buy generic things from Walmart, I remain surprised that people buy things like tires from Walmart or Sam's Club.  A person ought to know their tires.

Anyhow, the prime beneficiary of Walmart's decision will be to benefit local retailers, and that's a good thing. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the politics of their decisions, which I'll address in just a moment, but rather economics.  By and large, much smaller retailers have remained strong in this market area anyhow.  Walmart removing itself, albeit slowly, helps those local retailers, and that's a good thing.

The other thing it shows is the density of political thought and the vulnerability of the consumer to huge retailers.  Anyone who knows anything about firearms knows that Walmart is irrelevant in the market. But people who don't know anything about them assume that Walmart must be a major player as its a major player in so many other things.  Here, it doesn't matter whatsoever what Walmart does.  But people applying pressure to Walmart think it does.

The same is true in regard to the earlier decision of Dick's Sporting Goods in regard to selling AR type rifles.  In most markets, I doubt that Dick's is that big of retailer of firearms.  It does sell them, but Dick's is more of a ball and racket type of sporting goods outfit.  But it was vulnerable to the pressure.

And that national retailers are vulnerable to pressure shows a real weakness in the big is beautiful economic model.  Here, a lot of people who know very little about a topic are pressuring retailers on a feel good basis, and these big ones, that sell a lot more to really big markets, are yielding to make themselves look good in those markets. 

Last year Walmart was one of the entities that campaigned locally against a bill that would have imposed taxes on big retailers like itself that are multi state and are calculating the tax into every sale as its easier for them to do that than not.  They'd rather not pay the tax, of course, as those few extra cents go into their own coffers if the state doesn't take them, and they don't have to pay for the extra bookkeeping, etc., that paying it entails. The anti campaign was successful and basically Wyoming simply gave money away to Walmart and its kin as a result.  The bill is back for consideration now.

These two things may not seem to be connected, but they are.  Walmart makes its decisions on what the American public ought to buy and where it will be made and the price it will be sold for its own economic reasons.  It's only vulnerable to pressure from very large markets, but this demonstrates that it is vulnerable.  If the State of California, which is right now getting set to ban the sale of furs in that state, decided tomorrow that eating meat was bad and put pressure on Walmart to cease its sales, it might, and a retailer that is so large and dominant that its driven locals retailers under could in turn deprive people of things they find familiar on a dubious basis, and without any of their own say.  If we're going to put up with that, we ought to at least collect our share of the taxes.

And, for that matter, if Walmart is vulnerable enough to shed sections of its business and thereby accidentally yield them to local retailers, that's not a bad thing.