In Reversal, Walmart Puts Guns Back On Display

Walmart is returning guns and ammunition back to its shelves after removing them from display as a safety precaution, citing this week's "isolated civil unrest."

The retailer had instructed its stores on Wednesday to take firearms out of view to a secure location in the back, to be sold upon request. This following the unrest in Philadelphia after the police fatally shot a Black man on Monday.

Walmart earlier did not specify how long it would keep weapons off the sales floors, prompting widespread speculation that the retailer was also heeding possible fallout from next week's election.

Now the company says the action was prompted by damage to some of its stores this week, and that it's ready to restore guns and ammunition to their displays.

"As the current incidents have remained geographically isolated, we have made the decision to begin returning these products to the sales floor today," Walmart said in a statement on Friday.

The company sells firearms in about half of its 4,700 stores in the U.S. It previously temporarily took down firearm displays in stores this summer, when several Walmart stores were damaged during a nationwide wave of civil unrest after George Floyd, another Black man, was killed by police in Minneapolis. [Copyright 2020 NPR]