Walmart to end sales of military-style rifles

Walmart said yesterday that it would end sales of high-powered military-style assault rifles in its stores in the US.

The decision comes as public pressure mounted on the retailer to stop selling some of the most lethal weapons associated with many the mass shootings in the US.

The move also came ahead of the shootings of two TV journalists in Virginia yesterday.

According to authorities the gunman in that attack used a type of handgun that Walmart did not sell.

According to Walmart, the decision had more to do with lower consumer demand for such military-style rifles, not gun politics. It added it was expanding its offerings of shotguns and other weapons used by hunters.

The decision served to bring Walmart's gun sale policies back in the spotlight as debates over gun control again took centre-stage due to the Virginia shootings.

Gun control advocates viewed the company's action as significant due to similar weapons used by shooters in recent massacres, including an attack on a Colorado movie theatre by a gunman who killed 12 people, and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in which 20 children and six staff died.

Accordingly, Walmart will stop selling military-style weapons such as the AR-15 rifle this fall, citing declining customer demand for the controversial firearms.

''If you have a product customers aren't buying, you phase it out,'' he said. Shoppers ''were buying shotguns and rifles, and so we are increasing assortment in that,'' Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg said.

Wal-Mart had been selling modern sporting rifles, the industry term for guns that looked like the military-style M-16 rifle, at about a third of its US locations.

The retailer reduced the number and variety of guns on offer in stores and replaced them with more upscale products such as exercise equipment.

In April 2011 firearms reappeared at many locations in April 2011, part of a broader strategy to add back merchandise and boost sales growth at US stores.

Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart, does not disclose how much it makes from guns sales.

Military-style weapons had been slammed by gun-control advocates for their use in mass shootings.

Following the  Newtown shooting, in which 26 people died, Wal-Mart said it would continue to sell the guns.