Dean Weingarten Quoted in Newsweek on Open Carry in Walmart (in 2019)

Being quoted in Newsweek would have been a more important incident in 1990. In 2019, not so much. The media landscape has changed in important ways. The mention in Newsweek means the media is more diverse. The voices of Second Amendment supporters are no longer so suppressed as to be readily ignored. From newsweek.com:

Meanwhile, other customers have, with less public attention, begun to test the reaches of Walmart's policies by carrying on as usual, and without apparent incident from store managers. On the gun-rights blog AmmoLand, firearms instructor Dean Weingarten posted about his venture into an Arizona Walmart while openly-carrying. He reported that he was able to complete his purchase and exit the store without complaint.

Weingarten is hardly the only gun-rights activists to take Walmart's "request" at face value. David Amad, an executive of the group Open Carry Texas, told The New York Times that many of his 38,000 members have openly carried inside a Walmart without pushback from management since the announcement.

It is a small ego boost. While difficult to measure, I suspect AmmoLand has more reach and influence than Newsweek. The mere fact an alternate viewpoint is acknowledged to exist, is the most significant point.

©2021 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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