Campaign Action
Two major retail chains, Dick’s and Walmart, recently took assault rifles off their shelves entirely and said they’d stop selling guns to people under 21. The first effect that move has had is on the public reputations of both companies:
A new survey of consumers by research firm YouGov BrandIndex shows that the “buzz score” for Walmart jumped 7 points after Walmart changed its gun policy on Feb. 27, from 13 to 20. The score for Dick’s surged from 2 to 18. YouGov computes scores by asking survey respondents whether they’ve heard anything about a given brand recently, and whether it was positive or negative. The worst possible score is -100 (totally negative) while the best is 100 (totally positive).
If only the restrictions would have one tenth as big an effect on gun violence, we’d be cooking with gas. But unfortunately, while this is a good step, curbing gun violence and mass shootings is going to take government action—action we won’t get as long as Republicans are in a position to block it.