'Customers no longer feel as safe': Walmart employee emails petition protesting gun sales to CEO Doug McMillon
- Walmart corporate employee Thomas Marshall on Tuesday emailed a petition with more than 128,000 signatures to the company's CEO, Doug McMillon, demanding that Walmart stop selling guns and ammunition.
- "Customers no longer feel as safe as they once did in our stores," Marshall wrote in a message accompanying the petition.
- Marshall is a Walmart e-commerce employee based in San Bruno, California, who helped organize a recent walkout protesting the company's gun sales.
- McMillon has said the company will be "thoughtful and deliberate" in its responses to two recent shootings at its stores that killed 24 people.
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A Walmart corporate employee on Tuesday delivered a petition with more than 128,000 signatures to the company's CEO, Doug McMillon, that calls for Walmart to stop selling guns and ammunition in its stores, Business Insider has learned.
The employee, Thomas Marshall, told Business Insider on Tuesday that he emailed McMillon a copy of the petition that included all the signatures. He shared the 5,818-page petition and an accompanying email message addressed to McMillon with Business Insider.
"The last thing we would want to do is politicize pain; please know, in delivering this petition, we want to prevent more unnecessary pain," Marshall wrote in the email to McMillon. "Customers no longer feel as safe as they once did in our stores. We must do more. We have the power to do more."
When asked about Marshall's email, a Walmart spokesman said, "With more than 1 million associates and millions more customers, we're listening to a wide range of perspectives and views."
Read more: Walmart: 'It's time' for Congress to debate an assault-weapons ban
Walmart has said it has no plans to stop selling guns or ammunition in the wake of two recent shootings at Walmart stores, which killed 22 people in El Paso, Texas and two Walmart employees in Southaven, Mississippi.
Marshall is a Walmart e-commerce employee based in San Bruno, California, who helped organize a recent walkout protesting the company's gun sales. He called for action against Walmart's gun sales in a mass email immediately following the shootings.
The petition he delivered to McMillon on Tuesday asks Walmart to stop selling guns and ammunition in its stores, ban people from carrying guns onto company property, and cease donations to politicians who accept money from the National Rifle Association.
McMillon said last week that the company is "thinking through the broader issues related to gun violence and things we should do to help create safer communities."
Read more: Walmart CEO promises 'thoughtful and deliberate' response to 2 deadly shootings at its stores
Walmart is also looking to "identify additional actions we can take to strengthen our processes, improve our technology and create an even safer environment in our stores," he said.
"We're a learning organization, and we'll work to understand the many important issues arising from El Paso and Southaven as well as those raised in the broader national discussion around gun violence," McMillon said in a note addressed to Walmart employees that was posted to social media. "We'll be thoughtful and deliberate in our responses, and will act in a way that reflects our best values and ideals, focused on the needs of our customers, associates and communities."
Read the message that Marshall sent McMillon: