Dive Brief:
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After weeks of trying to keep its guns policy locally focused and low-key, Target interim CEO John Mulligan wrote on the company’s blog that “Bringing firearms to Target creates an environment that is at odds with the family-friendly shopping and work experience we strive to create.” He said the retailer requests that customers refrain from bringing guns into its stores even where that might be legal.
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Although not an outright ban, it’s the retailer’s strongest position on the matter.
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In recent weeks, "open carry" firearms advocates have staged demonstrations by pointedly bringing guns into stores, provoking counter-protests by groups like Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and calls for boycotting the retailer until it took a stand.
Dive Insight:
"Open carry" activists may have played a pivotal role in helping the gun control cause. Their videos of people openly toting guns in public spaces like retail stores and restaurants have provoked not just gun control advocates, but also some pro-gun people to protest. They say it's making people, especially those with children, nervous.
Target is not instituting a ban here. Indeed, Target has tried to dodge taking much of stand at all until now, saying only that it follows local laws, which in most of these cases allows people to openly carry firearms. Not even those laws prohibit private companies or property owners from banning guns from their own establishments, however. The question now is whether open-carry advocates will let things go, or if Target will have to establish an outright policy forbidding customers to bring guns into their stores.