Standard Mischief

Well, I kinda feel a little funny sending in a protest letter to Wal*Mart using a pen name, but I told myself that it’s important. No use having a BUYcott (or a boycott for that matter) if the target is left clueless. Since I didn’t see a pallet of Winchester ?white box? last Saturday , I suppose we all ought to go to Wal*Mart’s feedback page and send them a little reminder. Let’s make absolutely sure. Here’s mine:

To whom it may concern:

I am a blogger on the internet. My website is http://standardmischief.com/ and I blog under a pseudonym. I am also a (mostly) satisfied Wal*Mart customer. As you may or may not know, many firearms enthusiasts on the web celebrate every November 19 with something called National Ammo Day (http://ammoday.com/). This year many of us decided to send you a little hello message. Many of us attempted to buy Winchester brand ?White Box? ammunition as close as possible to 3:30 PM Central time (adjusted for each time zone). We trust you noticed. Our reason was twofold.

The first reason is mostly a reaction to a news story back in 2002. [1] A Wal-Mart employee calls the police after someone buys a thousand rounds of ammo. Although someone actually appears to have been arrested on other charges, we just wanted to let you know that for people who like to shoot, one thousand rounds is just a few days worth of shooting at the range. Nothing to get excited over.

The second reason is a bit more serious. After the Katrina disaster, I was shocked to hear that Wal-Mart, which seem to be supporting relief efforts, actually shut down sales of firearms in 40 stores around the gulf coast [2]. This was unbelievable in the face of all the crime and looting going on in the disaster area. Some little clueless regional manager that works for your company must have thought that would keep guns out of the hands of the lawless. While the looters looted, rescue worker who have never before needed to defend themselves while doing their jobs could not equip themselves at your stores. Homeowners that always thought the police would be able to protect them were unable to purchase what they needed to keep themselves safe. Totally unacceptable.

I suppose it never occurred to whomever made this particularly poor decision that any purchasers who might have tried to buy a firearm would still have to pass a federal background check. That’s the law of the land. Zero looters were denied a firearm by this policy. Thousands of your loyal customers from throughout the country were surprised and shocked by this policy.

Here is a particularly weasely quote from your spokesperson [2]:

?…A Wal-Mart spokeswoman, Karen Burk, attributed the company’s decision to pull guns from the shelves to ‘’some very fluid circumstances and changing situations” in the region. She did not elaborate far beyond that. ”We’re trying to take care of our customers and community and be a responsible retailer at the same time,” Burk said…?

I’m planning to publish this letter on my website. I’m hoping to hear back from you and share your response with my readers.

Sincerely,

Standard Mischief

[1] http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2005/10/blog-post.html
[2] http://www.boston.com/news/weather/articles/2005/09/11/halted_gun_sales_infuriate_customers/

So, to my readers, if anyone else participated with an ammo purchase this week, even if it wasn?t exactly on the dot on Saturday, and you feel you didn?t get credit, you are more than welcome to post it here. And just because no one has yet (to my knowledge at least) started a massive reciprocal trackback post, I?ll do that here too.

If you have blogged about ammo day, your purchase on ammo day (or ammo week), or your letter to Wal*Mart, and you send a trackback ping to this post in the next two weeks, I’ll trackback to your blog. Just to keep it honest on my part, I’m confessing right now that this idea is about 50% ?get the message out to Wal*Mart?, 10% curiosity, and the last 40% shameless self promotion.

Please trackback ping to http://standardmischief.com/2005/11/23/my-letter-to-walmart-about-the-ammo-buycott/trackback/