Gee whiz, boys and girls, sit down and listen to another tale of “The Walmart Jabberwock,” CEO Doug McMillon.
Unknown before 2019, he galumphed onto the political scene breathing Great Value Brand hellfire!
In an eye-rolling, faux-pious speech, he declared that the contemporaneous 2019 shooting tragedies at two Walmarts could be countered by banning the sale of .223 caliber ammunition! Yes!
His “logic” was inexplicable then and is even more so now: McMillon equated the merchandising of legal firearms and ammunition as somehow the cause of criminal shootouts or lunatic violence on the properties of his 4,756 stores. So thousands of law-abiding citizens got stuck with the inconvenience and expense of going elsewhere to make their purchases.
And then he decreed that said law-abiding citizens could not exercise their open carry Second Amendment right to bear arms in his stores in open-carry states. All by himself!
Surely, thought the Walmart Jabberwock, that would stop the bad behavior.
So how did this affect lethal violence at Walmart? Z-E-R-O.
Evidently, McMillon’s doltish decree has made Walmart properties more dangerous!
Perhaps McMillon should follow truth-in-advertising norms by rebranding Walmart as Walghanistan.
Just last week an apparent shoplifter at the Walmart in Sterling, Virginia—just down the road from Dulles Airport—engaged in a gunfight and car chase, leaving three people wounded.
Surely the perp was really impressed that he couldn’t buy ammo at the Sterling store. And if the shoppers and store security around him had been openly carrying firearms for self-defense, he probably wouldn’t have been even a teensy-weensy bit deterred. Right.
It would be interesting to ask McMillon The Jabberwock just how his pompous overreach did anything to prevent this week’s bloody, violent knifing death of a 15-year-old girl in the Lake Charles, Louisiana store? (Sorry. In MBA speak, make that location WSC-469).
What will The Jabberwock do now, ban knives in all 4,756 Walmarts across the United States?
What will McMillon do if some idiot grabs a Hypertough Brand (Made-in-Communist-China) crowbar, and kills somebody? Ban the whole Tool Department?
Or God forbid, what if a mind-warped gang-banger grabs a really lethal weapon: a 110 ounce can of Great Value Hominy ($3.16) and slams it down, edge-on, against somebody’s skull?
What will the obviously naïve CEO do then? Decree that Number 10 cans should have a new classification as an AOW (Any Other Weapon) then have his customers fill out a Form 4473 and wait for the National Instant Check System to provide clearance?
Or just get Walmart out of the grocery business altogether?
Here’s the problem: McMillon is not Sam Walton and never will be. He is a marketing mercenary armed with a green eyeshade and a ballpoint pen. He is absolutely nothing like Sam Walton, who would pilot his own plane from city to city to ensure his customers were happy.
McMillon the Jabberwock is a hired-gun bean-counter with advanced degrees in business administration along with the apparent empathy of his fellow denizen of Wonderland, the Red Queen.
Quite literally, Doug McMillon, like other cancel culture fanatics, knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Around the same time that the little girl lay bleeding to death in WSC-469, McMillon, being guileless and blinded by the political limelight, was busy bloviating about a $15 minimum wage.
It is apparent that McMillon never considered hiring more and better security folks and paying them a living wage so they could stop bad guys from killing the customers on his Walmart properties.
After all, he is just an MBA and all that counts is the bottom line.
Welcome to Walghanistan! Always Low Prices!
Sam Walton is rolling in his grave. Ol’ Roy, too.