No, no more firearms at Walmart in the lower 48 so far as I know of. That said, they definitely do have a wide range of knives, archery equipment, sling shots, pump air guns etc. not to mention those items that can be thrown. If we (as in whomever) are indeed teaching school kids to throw stuff at a perpetrator in their classroom, then I would think that someone would have the presence of mind to do more than scream and run. One single person, setting an example might have saved a lot of lives. All that said, I’m sure there are plenty of folks who were there that are asking themselves the same questions as to the “shoulda’s, woulda’s and coulda’s.
I understand you perfectly Gloria and am extremely sympathetic to your thought process but it isn’t a matter of wanting to learn firearms operations. It’s a matter of what to do in a crisis and how to handle it. I too have been trained in CPR and “other” life saving techniques as has just about every soldier I served with but giving CPR to a dead person is fairly useless and a dead person can’t give CPR. People need to learn what to do when EVEN a natural disaster occurs and some do but the problem is that very few people believe that a tornado will ever bear down on them or they’ll get stuck on the road in sub-zero weather. Crisis management for man made disasters should be on the to do list but again, very few people actually believe that they will ever be faced with a shooter, a bandito on the street or even a mad man in a car plowing through a crowded sidewalk much less someone equally mad going through a crowded Walmart with a gun.
If someone ran to a store's gun sales department in an attempt to defend themselves and others from a wild shooter, they would first have to take a weapon out of the case, then search for ammo of the correct caliber, then break open the carton and load the gun. That would take too long to offer protection for anyone. Seconds count in a scenario like this, baby! Hal
I was accidentally sent to Vung Tao for a permanent change of station in Vietnam. The entire time I spent in country I kept my weapon with me at all times with the exception of the 2 weeks I spent in the in-country R&R beach city. I wrote “with the exception of” because I was made to store my M-16 in the weapons shack. I was told that since we had an agreement with the VC we needn’t have to be armed. Long story short, we got hit and I made it to the shack to retrieve my M-16 and grab a bandolier of 5.56 rounds, load a mag and send it home. Now, you might think that it was easy to do but no, since everyone else had been issued an M-14 and nearly all there was was 7.62 rounds, I had to find the 5.56 after finding my weapon with no help from the dern munitions guy because he was too busy grabbing his own stuff. Could I do it today? You can bet your best set of knickers on it! My point is? It’s like life itself. The amount of time given is irrelevant. It’s what you do with the time you have that can make the difference between life and death. And......training helps.