Maybe Capitalism, And America, Does Work Sometimes The Way It’s Supposed To
Big Corporations, Perhaps Surprisingly, Lead The Way On Gun Control
As you’ve probably heard by now, Walmart, the biggest retailer in the country, is expanding common sense gun sales policies, announcing it’ll stop selling guns of any kind and ammunition to anybody under the age of 21. Walmart stopped selling semi-automatic rifles a year and a half ago, but did so quietly, saying it was purely a business decision due to a decline in consumer demand. The announcement follows a similar move by Dick’s Sporting Goods, which we reported on yesterday.
Now you all know we’re very cynical, and when corporations make moves like this, it’s usually because they’re trying to head off the possibility of being put in a legislative straightjacket. But all the legislation on the table right now is so lame compared to what the retailers are doing on their own.
Still, Corporate America doesn’t typically tend to have a conscience. (Although if that is the case here: if executives were truly moved, we won’t take credit away from them).
But for argument’s sake, assuming they haven’t grown a conscience, what going on here?
Maybe it’s because capitalism, and America, does work sometimes the way it’s supposed to. And why with all our faults America proves time and time again to be the best system and best country around. (Not to mention we still have freedom of the press, and many “Democracies” with Constitutions guaranteeing it now don’t).
When the tide here turns — which sometimes does take a painfully long time. When a small group of students, for instance, creates a sea-change in public sentiment, corporations are often the first to sniff it out and react because the risk of not doing so could result in negative publicity and deep, fast harm to their overall financial well-being.
It’s still premature to say that’s definitively what’s happening here, but we’d like to think so.
