Walmart to return firearms and ammunition to sales floor today

Yahoo Finance Video

Walmart will begin returning firearms and ammunition to the sales floor beginning Friday after they were temporarily removed amid "social unrest." Yahoo Finance's Julia La Roche joins Kristin Myers to break down the details.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: We have some breaking news now from Walmart. That stock, by the way, is down right now roughly 2%. They will be returning fire arms and ammunitions to their shelves. So for more on this, we have Yahoo Finance's Julia La Roche. Hey, Julia, so what's going on here with Walmart?

JULIA LA ROCHE: Yeah, that's right, Kristin. We just obtained a statement from a Walmart. They said, quote, "After civil unrest earlier this week resulted in damage to several of our stores consistent with actions we took over the summer, we asked stores to move firearms and ammunition from the sales floor to a secure location in the back of the store out of an abundance of caution." Keep in mind, they just mentioned they did this back in the summer back in June. You could still purchase firearms and ammunition at that time, but they were no longer on the physical sales floor out of quote, an "abundance of caution."

Now, Walmart is saying, quote, "As the current incidents have remained geographically isolated, we have made the decision to begin returning these products to the sales floor today." I'll also point out, Kristin, Walmart has about 4,700, actually more than 4,700, stores across the US, but only about a half of them sell firearms. And then if you recall, last year back in September following the deadly shooting in an El Paso store location, the company did make some pretty drastic changes to its gun policy, ending the sale of certain kinds of ammunition and firearms to focus on the sportsmen and hunter segment. Also you had CEO Doug McMillon at the time come out and ask folks, even in states where you could openly carry, asking customers not to do that and also making other changes going back. I just feel like it's worth mentioning that as well.