Some activists on the left, like to claim it’s easier to buy a gun in America than it is to buy cold medicine. One journalist found how wrong that was and actually published her investigation, despite it not fitting into the media's narrative.
Business Insider’s Hayley Peterson wanted to know how difficult it would be for her to buy a gun at a Walmart in Virginia, after the superstore chain faced pressure from Democrats to stop selling firearms. After making dozens of phone calls, unable to find a Walmart that sold guns, she did find a store, but still left empty-handed, as she explains in her article entitled, “I tried to buy a gun at Walmart twice, and roadblocks left me empty-handed both times.”
Peterson explained at the beginning, her investigation was to discover the “placement, selection, marketing, security, and sales of firearms in Walmart's stores.” She admits, “My journey to bring a gun home from Walmart was more complicated than I expected, and I was left with the impression that the company takes gun security and sales seriously.” (Gee, I thought they were just handing out guns left and right while families do their back to school shopping!)
Unable to find which stores sold guns through the retailer’s website, Peterson made over a dozen phone calls to various stores, with long wait times, to only get more non-answers on which stores sold guns. Finally, she found one store which confirmed they sold firearms. After driving to the store, Peterson described the selection as “limited” and detailed how they, along with knives and other weapons were behind locked cases and tied with zip ties. Imagine that!
After waiting for a manager, Peterson was still out of luck because there wasn’t an authorized firearm seller scheduled to work that day. She came back later that week, “confident that I would successfully purchase a firearm that day.” Again, she was wrong. As she was filling out the paperwork for a background check, she was stopped by the employee who told her that her driver’s license address needed to match her home address (it didn’t.) Instead of coming back another day, the journalist gave up, finding the process too complicated to keep pursuing for a story.
Peterson ended her story expressing amazement at how difficult it was to buy a gun, listing all the speedbumps she had to go over.
Still, her outlet should be given credit for publishing the story no matter the outcome. Let’s be honest, this would’ve been on the cutting room floor had it be a CNN or MSNBC reporter’s experience.
H/T Twitchy
