Wal-Mart halts sales of controversial AR-15 semi-automatic ‘sporting rifle’

Wal-Mart Stores, the United States’ top seller of guns and ammunition, said it would stop selling the AR-15 and other semi-automatic rifles because of sluggish demand and focus instead on “hunting and sportsman firearms”.

Wal-Mart said the decision was unrelated to high-profile incidents involving the rifles, including the killing of 26 students and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.

“This is done solely on what customer demand was,” said company spokesman Kory Lundberg. “We are instead focusing on hunting and sportsman firearms.”

Lundberg said Wal-Mart would stop selling a class of rifle called the modern sporting rifle (MSR), which includes the semi-automatic AR-15, which is a civilian version of the military M-16. He said that class of rifle was sold in fewer than a third of its roughly 4,500 US stores.

The announcement came on the same day two television journalists were shot and killed in Virginia in an incident that is likely to stoke the debate about gun ownership in the United States.

Retail consultant Burt Flickinger saw the move as part of a shift at Wal-Mart under Chief Executive Doug McMillon to pay closer attention to public opinion on social issues, noting the company had raised wages for entry-level staff ealier this year.