Walmart employees walk out in protest of gun sales

Roughly 40 employees walked out of a Walmart e-commerce office in California on Wednesday to protest the retail giant’s gun sale policy after a deadly mass shooting at one of its stores in El Paso, Texas.

According to The Washington Post, the employees left their offices for about 15 minutes and gathered outside the building, where they took a moment of silence.

{mosads}Other company locations in New York City and Portland, Ore., also reportedly saw employees take similar actions on Wednesday to call on the company to change its policies. 

The demonstration comes after a gunman opened fire at a Walmart store in El Paso on Saturday, killing 22 people and injuring dozens more. Less than a day after the attack, another gunman fired shots in a Dayton, Ohio, entertainment district, killing 9 people.

Thomas Marshall, a Walmart employee who helped organize Wednesday’s walkout in California, told the Post that workers “no longer want to be complicit by working for a company that profits off the sale of firearms.” 

Kate Kesner, who also works at the company’s e-commerce office in San Bruno, Calif., and helped organize the demonstration, told the newspaper that she feels there is an “intense irony that Walmart continues to sell guns despite the constant shootings in its stores.”

Despite calls to change its gun sale policy following the mass shooting at one of its stores, Walmart, one the largest firearm retailers in the country, said earlier this week that it has issued no directives to any of its store locations to change its policy.

Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove also told the Post that there are “more effective channels such as email or leadership conversations” than the recent demonstrations.

“The vast majority of our associates who want to share their views are taking advantage of those options,” he added.