Walmart (courtesy bustle.com)

“The senseless violence that met its devastating end in the famous and widespread discount department store is not the first of its kind to play out on Walmart premises,” bustle.com reports. “Earlier this year, two men got into an argument at a Walmart service counter in Chandler, Arizona that turned deadly. In 2013, at a Greenville, North Carolina Walmart parking lot, Lakim Faust, an African-American man, shot four people, targeting white people as his victims. A number of other crimes have also occurred on Walmart sites, including an attempt to sell a baby, the theft of a Girl Scouts cookie cash box [!] and an attempted sock robbery by a naked man [!!].” The article concludes that the “Walmart effect” is all down to  . . .

location, location, location.

[Scott Wolfe, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina and the lead author of the study entitled “Rolling back prices and raising crime rates”] noted that Walmart tended to build its stores in “counties with higher than average crime rates” that were “more likely to see Walmart build even after accounting for crime-related predictors, such as poverty, unemployment, immigration, population structure and residential turnover.”

But Wolfe and Pyrooz did not find that Walmart was responsible for rising poverty levels, economic disadvantages, or other common markers of crime. Researchers say that more work is needed in order to fully uncover the relationship between Walmart and illegal activity, questions about why criminals might specifically choose the big box store remain unanswered.

Researchers need to do more work to decide the fact of a matter, rather than settling for simple correlation? The next thing you know you’ll tell me we should look into whether or not “high-capacity” magazines are more dangerous than less capacious ammo holders. Or whether or not assault weapon registration and/or ban has any effect on crime. Nah. Let’s just ban ’em. And Walmart.

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76 COMMENTS

      • Australias major commitments too the world; socialism & Vegemite. Vegemite sales are down. Sounds like we will be a having a large rash of shootings to justify the weapons bans in the wings. With luck we will be ditching lindsey graham, toomey-manchin rest of the represenatives of the people that do anything but.

      • Quite possible since so many here and on the other side haven’t got a clue about have laws are made.

    • Pretty much. Walmart has low prices and attracts low income or particularly frugal folks, and most of your violent criminals are in the low income category. 42% of purchases are made by families making under $40k per year. Walmart locations are also large and popular and each averages about 11,000 “car trips” PER DAY. All Walmart locations cumulatively serve 100,000,000 customers each week! Get that many people in one place (in many cases open 24/7) and you’re going to have crime in that place…

      “Why does 10% of crime happen at walmart when 10% of the population is regularly there? Is it a crime magnet?” …that’s basically how it sounds to me.

    • This was my first thought! A quick glance at the above site, and you see what most of the criminals look like around my area!

    • Thanks for posting that link, that’s the funniest shit I’ve seen in a LONG time…

    • I been hitting Walmarts for various household items for years, I’ve yet to see a single person who would be a front pager for peopleofwalmart.com It’s kind of disappointing really.

  2. The two Walmarts I frequent in Charlotte, NC are nowhere near a poverty-stricken part of town. So that POS reason is already blown to shreds.

    • In Texas, and perhaps in others states, too, but I don’t know, the traditional rite of passage upon receiving one’s CHL is to take your “Wally Walk.” There are funny little entries on the web detailing specifics of what this entails, but the gist of it is simply going to Walmart, walking around and interacting as usual on your first day of licensed concealed carrying.

      • I have no idea what custom may have evolved in CO for new CCWs. I was one of the first issued a permit when the sheriff in this county decided on a shall issue policy (before the statewide law–and probably the reason we have such a law now). I do know walmart was one of the first places I went as an open carrier (besides the LGS and range).

        • Where I am one point of the walk is to conceal and realize that people aren’t all going to see that tiny bit of printing or somehow magically know you’ve got a weapon.

      • The custom of a certain California forum I frequent was, upon receipt of a CCW, to go and buy nachos at Wally World, then go and buy ammo. It fell out of use for two primary reasons: 1) WW stopped selling nachos, and 2) there was no ammo to buy.

      • Didn’t know about the Wally Walk, but when my CHL arrived I did to Walmart. Thought “well just put CHL in my wallent behind driver license, minght as well put my Ruger LCR .38 .in pocket holster, and place in right hand jeans pocket. I’ve been home carry for a long time so it wasn’t really a big deal. Did some shopping for towels. Decided to swing by ammo case to see if there were any common calibers in stock.
        Three 50 round boxes of 9mm. brought two, left one for fellow gun gal/guy. Had a nice chat with clerk who had unlocked ammo case. Asked if I had my CHL yet, said “yes” did not ask if I was carring and I did not volunteer.information. Because of home carry, totally comfortable anywhere legal,

      • What’s funny is Wally world was the first place I went also. It’s a confidence builder to grocery shop there while pushing a cart and feeling self conscious. I still feel slightly self conscious, but only when I am carrying a full size.

        • “It’s a confidence builder to grocery shop there while pushing a cart and feeling self conscious. I still feel slightly self conscious, but only when I am carrying a full size.”

          Um…you are talking about open carrying, right?

    • Yeah, and is that Mountain View walmart full of your wealthy Atherton and Los Altos executives? Didn’t think so. It’s still full of the lowest income folks in the region. Plus me, back when you could find cheap 12 ga and other ammo there. I see lots of similar posts above about the local walmarts not being in low income areas, but it doesn’t change the fact that the walmart is still always going to be a gathering place for the lowest income people in any given area. Lots and lots and lots of people, heavily biased to the lowest income, lowest education demographic in any given area.

  6. “counties with higher than average crime rates”

    Soooo….a county with a city in it? That is where you’d expect to find a gigantic store, of any type.

  7. In Vegas, the question is: “Is this a 2 gun Walmart or just 1 gun?”

    It’s easier to count the normals there.

  8. And we spend our tax dollars on these studies. Let’s see. People steal money at banks because that’s where money is. People steal liquor at liquor stores because that’s where liquor is. People do stupid stuff to people at Walmart because that’s where people are. Lots of customers and open 24 hours a day. Put the same number of folks in a different place 24 hours a day and wonder why all kinds of folks will go there. Can’t imagine a headline where lots of folks were shot in an empty, abandoned warehouse.

  9. Late night at my local WalMart, the zombies come out. Grifters, vampires, gang members, etc that apparently sleep all day and are up all night. I have only been there late night a couple of times, and after the first trip, I made each subsequent trip armed. Won’t go back without being armed. I wonder what all the cameras on the front of the building are for…to record incidents for police to identify the miscreants later?

  10. I think the Walmart my wife shops at probably makes more money than most. We have to call ahead on the day we shop, to tell them she’s coming, so they can call in the reserve staff. When she checks out, she gets in the “three cart minimum” line, where they have forklifts standing by.

    • And be close to the poorer customers who want/need low prices and are unable to travel great distances or buy in Costco-sized increments.

      How terrible – maybe social workers should instead for the poor people to shop at Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods?

  12. We live in a great area, but even we don’t care to go to Walmart, particularly late at night. There have been occasions, though, when for whatever reason, we’ve gone, say, after midnight on a weekend. Armed with about three to four self-defense sidearms between the two of us, I’ve still felt as we walked across the parking lot, and sometimes muttered in “Pulp Fiction” fashion, that “We should have F’n shotguns for this.”

  13. UWould not hurt my feelings might bring back the family owned business. Within a 28 sq mile area we have 7 + sams club & 2 more being built our year round population is less than 30k. They pay about $7.75 according to my neighbor an assistant mgr w/them retiring this year after 32. Can’t afford too but she got told retire or fire. She makes to much money
    for this district. A whole $26thou a year. Pension will be $530 a month. Found all this when my wife decided she hates her job. She’d be making less for more work no bene’s or retirement.

  14. Walmart in high crime (low income) areas? I guess that providing low income people with jobs instead of welfare is a crime these days.

    Well, I guess it’s better than blaming George Bush, global warming and white privilege. Just not much better.

    • +1000

      While not all the Walmarts in CT are in crappy areas, some of them including a warehouse is the largest employer for those cities.

  15. Yup, I keep a firearm in the car most of the time, But when ever I go to Walmart, I’m packing.

  16. Sock robbery? By a naked man? I suspect this far from the oddest incident at a Wal-Mart.

  17. Where I live in Cook County,Illinois and NW Indiana the Wal-Marts are in fairly crappy areas. Lots of lowlifes wandering around. No firearm stuff in Cook County but ammo in Indiana. Going to Merrilville ,Indiana they have lots of guns & ammo.
    Definitely carry in all these WallyWorlds.

  18. I drive past five Walmarts on the way to work each day. None of them are in particularly low income areas. Most are in very new areas with higher income. The thing they have in common though is that they’re all right of the freeway exit for easy access. One in particular seems to draw a more diverse clientel though.

  19. Around here you could say that WalMart is the main cause of residential turnover. They hire and fire so many people before the 90 day probationary period ends and these families always end up leaving.

  20. Then the multiple people busted at walmarts trying to cook meth in backpack lab rigs with ingredients off the shelf. Walmart brings out the best.

  21. I live in a small southern town in which half of the residents are below the poverty line. No one has ever been shot…sometimes teenagers smoke cigarettes in the parking lot. Also illegal, though not as bad.

  22. I’m armed when I go to Walmart, but that’s because I carry. I’m only armed with the same little gun that I carry everywhere else, so I guess I’m underprepared compared to some of the folks here that say they carry two and three guns specifically because they’re going to Walmart. If I felt it was necessary to triple my load out just because of my destination, I’d find a different store or just wait ’til tomorrow.

    • That’s probably good advice, Matt. Like I said, we don’t typically visit Walmart, or even Sam’s Club, for that matter. We’re a Costco couple. Walmart may get something of a bad rap that’s beyond it’s control when you figure that much of whatever illegal activity goes down there, does so in the parking lots. People meet in Walmart parking lots because they’re conveniently located (that’s why Walmart built there in the first place) and because everyone in a given area usually knows where every Walmart is.

      So you see classified ads transactions take place there. Craigslist is a popular one. You see child handoffs between divorced parents go on there. You see any given transaction which is inherently risky go down there, because both parties think they’re safe in such a wide open public place. Any of these sketchy scenarios could turn dangerous, but it’s not necessarily because of anything Walmart has done or failed to do.

      Still, it is the largest discount retailer, so it does attract a demographic that skews toward the lower end of the household income scale for an area. There are going to be shoplifting events and those always have major potential to turn violent. Heck, as recently as TODAY, a suburban Houston police officer was found guilty of manslaughter for fatally shooting a 19 year old shoplifter whom he’d pursued on foot into the woods beside the store. Anything can happen anywhere. Even if the per-incident probability is low, a high traffic place like Walmart sees so much activity that it’s really more a matter of when, not if, something serious happens.

        • Couldn’t tell you. I do know they do not sell any firearms or ammunition, which is unfortunate, but lots of places that reasonably could don’t sell them, either. I know there are no 30.06 signs posted at any of the four Houston area stores, so there’s nothing explicit in that regard.

          • Costco has issued a company-wide memorandum stating that members are not permitted to bring a firearm inside Costco unless they are law enforcement. The corporate office said that because Costco is a members-only club, and not a traditional retail store, that they by law are not required to post the entrances nor notify the members while they sign up. So they may not have 30.06 signs.

            However, some Costco stores have posted signs as you can see here.

            http://www.blackopssec.com/img/costco.jpg

              • That sees to fly in the face of people here saying you should in no way support a business that is anti-gun. A CCer was even killed by a cop at Costco a few years ago after his gun was spotted and they called the law.

              • I’m not in the habit of telling other people what to do (except “Shut up because you’re being an ass.), so what other people think doesn’t matter too much to me. If they find me a better place to buy in bulk that’s gun-friendly, I’ll listen, but that’s it.

  23. For philosophical reasons, I do not shop at WalMart. I will go out of my way to shop ay other stores, where the profits stay instate and often intown. One of the biggest reasons our country is in this freakin’ mess is because employers were so concerned with profits and only saw their employees as a necessary evil.

    As a former employer, myself, I can tell you that there is a tremendous reward in knowing that you can help provide a sense of direction for many people still at the point of finding food and shelter. They can be incredibly loyal. Of course, for employers who don’t pay much attention to their “people” or who are actually abusive, they will constantly be plagued with missing tools, sloppy work areas, vandalism, graffiti, abuse of sick days, etc. while a nurturing employer will have people not getting sick because they love going to work.

    It can happen, but it will never happen at WalMart, no matter how much hype they put into trying to convince that their socialistic model is ideal for the ignorant masses.

    Add to that the involvement of the Clintons in helping to sabotage the manufacturing and small business base in this country and WalMart becomes easily complicit in the downfall of the US economy. And yet people STILL shop there, looking for the lowest prices for items that their prior purchasing decisions had all but doomed the chances for further entrepreneurial success. For these low-intellect, low-information shoppers, whenever they are confronted with a moral and ethical discussion about their purchasing habits, their eyes will always glaze over or they will continue to justify shopping at WalMart because they can’t afford shopping elsewhere. The reason they can’t afford to shop elsewhere is because they never considered the long term consequences of their short term purchase decisions.

    And then there is the whole issue of the “WalMart People” on the internet; that category of truly bizarre whackos and misfits who are a comedic embarrassment for any country.

    • One problem is local politicians that gave huge tax breaks to get china mart into the towns.

  24. In my local Wal-Mart none of the employees seem to enjoy their work at all except the two really old guys who work as door greeters, but I figure they’re just so dang happy they woke up that morning…

  25. Port Orchard WA Walmart a couple years ago, a guy who was on the run with an underage girl from Utah shot and wounded two deputies before being hit by a third deputy. He shot the teenager and then killed himself.

    That third deputy was not wounded herself but hit the suspect in the leg shattering his femur and taking him to the ground from about 100 feet away.

  26. This crap will keep on until somebody notices that in America, to get your 15 minutes of fame, you take a gun (or knife, or box cutter, chainsaw, my home cooking) and use it to kill somebody. Voila! The whole world sees your picture, knows your name, hears your last words, and worst of all, your entire life dissected and reported on in infinite detail as they wallow through everything known or conjectured about you as the shake their heads and wonder “why?”
    FAME! IT’S THE MEDIA STUPID!

  27. I work for Wal-Mart and it’s not a bad (for now) job, and although some of the people are interesting, it’s not any more dangerous than anywhere else I go. At least I know there might be someone carrying concealed around if things go bad lol. Better than working in one of the “gun free” zones that seem to be such a target lately.

  28. In Memphis one of our Walmart stores has had AK’s stolen three different times. Today deputies found a few of them after a standoff in a home.

      • He must mean AR’s. The local that still sells long guns had Colt 6920LE for $799. Yes a local dept.bought all $200 ea. less than our LE supply bid.

  30. Walmart here in Rio Rancho, NM has seen a spike in crime of late. It was built at a location because the city gave them a very good tax break and that was next to one of the worst neighborhoods in our small city. It was also not anywhere near the better houses in our town. Wally world builds everywhere and often bases the locations on where they get the most bang for their dollar. Big parking lot, zip for security a lax local police force and you have an ideal crime site. Old folks, people with babies, some with their hands full of groceries all make for easy targets It appears to be a team effort with a couple or pair of males one to distract the other rips off the individual and they leave in a waiting car. In some cases they not only take the purse/wallet but have even taken the groceries as well. I don’t blame Walmart just the condition of the economy and ease at which the crooks can operate.

  31. Hate to admit but had to get 2 cycle oil there today as the parts store & gas station were both sold out. But several people were obviously carrying. Folks if you have taken the class & test spend a few more $$ get a good ccw holster, carry all the time & places you legally can and practice empty the wespon clear it twice practice drawing @ home.
    Once your comfortable carry everywhere. If you are not comfortable ccw either change guns or use a messenger or fanny bag. Luckily I’m in a tourist & college area so neither look out of place. We went to Youngstown OH too close on a rental house we bought @ auction. needed some toothpaste, diapers for our godchild Wally was close to the Hampton Inn. Walked in the only wal-mart w/armed guards @ the door. LEOSA had just passed darn glad it had. BTW problems with the title we didn’t lose anything was able to visit my Aunt just before she passed. Got to eat hometown food & pick up some pretty double bbls &
    Pistols going back too the civil war days A cousin left me but hadn’t had a chance to pick-up. So made the best of bad.

    • I’m a little confused by the way that your comment was written. Was the Walmart you went to buy two stroke oil at in Ohio? The reason I ask is because it isn’t clear to me if you are aware that: 1) Open carry was and still is legal and practiced in Ohio 2) Many of us carried concealed long before Ohio CHL law (2004) & LEOSA (2004) relying on an affirmative defense should we ever be charged. (I’ve been armed my whole adult life.) 3) Even with a CHL now in Ohio, there is no requirement to conceal.

      There’s no particular point to my comment except to get clarification and provide some information in case you were not aware.

      • Ve no Sorry SC where open carry anywhere but your own property is a felony. The reply to the other post should have been 2 separate. But the persons who are new to ccw or 1911 carry always seem to be obvious @ least to me. Constant checking it’s covered or readjusting. 1911 newbies seem to be more prone. If you carry cocked & locked use a holster with a thumbbreak or strap going in front of hammer if you don’t trust the safety & want to carry no strap carry hammer down on a empty chamber. Better yet get a pistol you are more comfortable with. Not using condition 1, 2 etc.. intentionally. New to 1911&.new to weapons get confused. Majority I’ve seen in local ccw classes have purchased the pistol 10 days or less before the class. A number have no idea how to even load.

        • Got it. That’s why I was confused. Thanks. One of the great things about an open carry state is that one only needs to worry about printing if they feel it is tactically necessary for them. The rest of us can cover as well as we want or not.

          IMHO, a 1911 can be a bit difficult for newbies. I generally don’t recommend them for those who are completely new to carrying a handgun unless they are not likely to be able to afford another handgun for a long while and are firmly set that a 1911 is what they want to carry. My favorite carry auto throughout the 1990s was a buttery-smooth customized Norinco 1911. It was mostly carried concealed in a holster without retention and always condition 1. I used to teach new 1911 carriers how to carry in other conditions but strongly recommended condition 1 with proper retention.

          • Unfortunately we have 2 of 4 gun shops (others are pawn shops) that tell people unless it’s a 1911 it’s not a real .45 or 1911 is the easiest gun to use. Iwas always taught 1911’s required a lot of practice to be good with. I carried 1 for years & shot competition. Now prefer XD or Glock in .45 & sig 2022 or CZ75 in 9mm. My old duty 4506 is just too heavy now.

  32. This article proves nothing.
    We’re getting more and more junk posted about politics and guns which seem to posted for the sole purpose of making conservatives look ignorant.

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