Everytown For Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action Applaud Aldi and Meijer For Decisions To Prohibit Open Carry in Stores

In the Past Week, Walmart, Kroger, Walgreens, CVS, Wegmans, Albertsons Companies, ALDI and Meijer Have All Announced Prohibitions on Open Carry in Stores

Polling Released Last Week Showed that Companies “Have More to Gain Than They Put at Risk” by Advocating for Gun Safety

NEW YORK — Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a part of Everytown, today applauded announcements from ALDI and Meijer that it will prohibit open carry of firearms in its stores. Moms Demand Action volunteers have been pressuring corporations to prohibit open carry in stores since 2013, when volunteers successfully convinced Starbucks to change its open carry policy. In 45 states, it’s legal to carry loaded firearms in public with no permit or safety training. Prohibiting open carry in stores makes employees and families safer.

“The tides have turned on gun safety — and the rising wave of public-facing companies taking action on gun safety is the latest proof of that shift,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “We applaud ALDI and Meijer for taking meaningful steps to keep their customers and employees safe from gun violence, and urge the Senate to do the same on behalf of all Americans.”

“ALDI and Meijer are two more proof points that taking action on gun safety isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s a smart business move when most of your customers are women,”  said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. “Women are also the majority of voters in this country, and our Senators should also remember that they too have a choice: Vote to keep our families safe or we will vote you out.” 

Polling released last week from Edelman Intelligence showed that a strong majority of Americans feel favorably towards businesses that support gun safety measures. The poll — taken before recent moves by these eight companies to prohibit open carry in their stores — shows broad and bipartisan public support for a variety of actions by CEOs and companies, including supporting legislation requiring background checks on all gun sales, funding gun safety education and prohibiting open carry in their stores. Based on these findings, Edelman Intelligence advised that businesses “have more to gain than they put at risk” by advocating for gun violence prevention. 

Other notable findings include: 

• Nearly half of Americans would be more likely to purchase from a company if its CEO has taken action to address gun violence and just 11 percent are less likely to purchase from that company; 
• The majority of Democrats, Republicans and gun owners would feel more favorable toward a company whose CEO advocated for legislation requiring background checks on all gun sales; and
• Consumers are three times more likely to respond positively than negatively to a CEO or company that takes action to address gun violence.

During the past week week alone, Albertsons Companies, ALDI, CVS, Kroger, Meijer, Wegmans, Walgreens and Walmart have joined a growing and diverse list of corporations that have taken a stand on gun violence prevention, including retailers like Levi Strauss & Co., TOMS, DICK’S Sporting Goods, L.L. Bean and REI, financial services companies like Citibank, Amalgamated Bank, BlackRock and PayPal, and tech companies like Facebook and Salesforce, to name a few. A sample of corporate action on gun violence prevention is available here.