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Targeting Wal-Mart

Unhappy with Wal Mart mainstreaming AR-15s, someone sued them:

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest gun retailer, is awaiting a verdict Wednesday to see whether it can continue to sell modern sporting rifles if enough investors think it’s a business the company shouldn’t be in.

Arguing that Wal-Mart’s willingness to sell high-capacity magazine rifles contradicts its promise to uphold community and family values, Trinity Wall Street Church in New York won its case in November, when the district court ruled shareholders could propose and vote on a resolution that would force Wal-Mart’s board of directors to review its gun sales policy.

Gun rights activists argue that the district court’s decision allows the church, which owns 3,500 Wal-Mart shares, and other political activists to push gun control via corporate policies rather than struggle to pass such laws in the electoral arena.

14 Responses to “Targeting Wal-Mart”

  1. Mr Evilwrench Says:

    OooOOOooh, a whole 3500 shares? That entitles them to go to the shareholder meeting, make their proposal, and be told to fuck off unless they can get over 50% of the shares to vote with them. I’ve been to such meetings, and the usual hippies and dipshits make their ludicrous proposals, promptly to be shut down.

  2. mikee Says:

    I think having the shareholders vote on such a resolution is just fine. Let the proposal be made by the majority shareholders, and each shareholder can vote on a per-share basis, and tally up the results. I have absolutely no doubt the proposal to continue selling legal firearms legally in places it is legal to do so will pass with a vast majority of votes.

    However, if someone holding a mere 3500 shares gets to write a proposal to stop selling self-actuating implements of mass child murder, I’d have a problem with that.

  3. mikee Says:

    Google the location of Trinity Church and you will see why the suit has had the success it has gotten so far. Those folks going to church across Broadway from the Stock Exchange likely have a bit more influence on judges than their number of shares would indicate.

  4. Tirno Says:

    GE owns NBC and MSNBC, doesn’t it? I wonder if a minority stockholder lawsuit could get them to retool the networks as non-partisan news outlets and pretty much fire all the current talent and management. The basis of the suit would be fiduciary mismanagement of valuable assets by focussing on a partisan editorial slant that repels a third of the country, is unbelieveable by another third, and competes poorly in a crowded media field for the last third. Basically, it would have been a better business decision to go for hard news with a rightward slant to challenge Fox for their part of the media market rather than trying to go to the left of CNN, ABC and CBS.

    If there are ten underutilized taco stands in town, and one overcrowded fast food burger joint, the right business decision is to open a ‘gourmet’ burger joint, not another taco stand.

  5. rickn8or Says:

    Gun rights activists argue that the district court’s decision allows the church, which owns 3,500 Wal-Mart shares, and other political activists to push gun control via corporate policies rather than struggle to pass such laws in the electoral arena.

    If it bothers you so much, perhaps you should sell your shares.

    Like mikee, said. “We voted on your proposal. You lost. Siddown and shaddup.”

  6. JTC Says:

    Credibility of such things is irrelevant to the coverage of them, giving voice and publicity to the causes of progressivism is. And of course the headline and storyline “church of david challenges wallyworld goliath to proliferation of weapons of mass child killings” is both the means and the end, in the same way “pizza shop owners slammed for anti-gay policy” was. The truth, and the outcome, get no mention.

    And rickn8or, that it bothers them is why they bought their piddling shares…voice and publicity.

  7. let it burn Says:

    @GE owns NBC and MSNBC, doesn’t it?

    no. comcast does.

  8. Daniel in Brookline Says:

    What’s a “high capacity magazine rifle”? Are they truly attempting to claim that ARs are Extra Special Dangerous because they can accept large magazines?

    They make 25-round magazines for the Ruger 10/22, don’t they?

  9. wizardpc Says:

    If it bothers you so much, perhaps you should sell your shares.

    Ah, but you see this is a tactic, not an actual moral objection. It’s a relatively new development in lawfare.

  10. divemedic Says:

    So a church that is engaged in buying stock in a for-profit company, and is using that stock to engage in political debate is still considered a tax-free religious entity?

  11. nk Says:

    It’s relatively new but not new-new. There were publicized cases of people buying stock in companies that did business with South Africa to bring similar actions before the end of apartheid. I’ll be impressed when the greens and the Social Justice W*nkers buy stock in Apple to force it to stop building its internet browsing devices with child slave labor in soft coal factories.

  12. comatus Says:

    divemedic’s got it, right there. Tax-free, check; non-profit status, OK. There has to be *something* you’re enjoined from, when you have that kind of standing. We-all went and disestablished them churches, you know. That has to count for something.

    Bet they’re still backlashing over getting caught with a bullish position in slave markets. That “accounts” for a lot of what goes on. You can bet that if any of your business progenitors ever shipped calico in the Triangle Trade, they would be all over that at your annual meeting.

  13. Ron W Says:

    Yeah, divemedic, I suppose it’s OK when it’s for a righteous cause like disarming the people.

  14. NotClauswitz Says:

    Since when did any Wall Street “church” ever represent anythign like so-called “community and family values” itself?

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