Court Upholds Walmart’s Legal Rights, Denies Shareholder’s Attempt to Govern Sale of Guns
Via Awr Hawkins at breitbart.com
After less than a year under appeal, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit released its opinion in Trinity Wall Street v. Walmart Stores, Inc., explaining that Walmart cannot be forced to allow shareholders to infringe on customers’s 2nd Amendment rights.
Federal appeals court released Walmart Stores Inc from a legal battle in which shareholders could revise company policy and ultimately stop the sale of specific guns and ammunition.
In April 2013 Trinity Wall Street Church drew up a proposal that would change policies in Walmart’s proxy materials, that is their company’s documents concerning procedures and methods.
As a Walmart shareholder, the goal of the church was to add these things to Walmart’s Governance Committee’s charter: “determining whether or not the company should sell a product that especially endangers public safety and well-being, has the substantial potential to impair the reputation of the Company and/or would reasonably be considered by many offensive to the family and community values integral to the Company’s promotion of its brand.”
There also was a portion of the proposal that set to determine “whether or not the company should sell guns equipped with magazines holding more than ten rounds of ammunition and to balancing the benefits of selling such guns against the risks that these sales pose to the public and to the Company’s reputation and brand value.”
Trinity sued when Walmart denied the proposal and the district court ruled that Walmart would have a corporate vote on adding the proposal to next year’s proxy materials.
Walmart immediately requested a higher court to review the case, saying that shareholders should not be able to interfere with common business decisions and the proposal clashes with the Security and Exchange Commission’s rules.
Now Walmart is safe with the Court of Appeals decision agreeing to allow the company to continue selling firearms to its customers under the 2nd Amendment.
Trinity Church found a loophole in the system allowing them to further their agenda, and jumped right on it. As a church observing events that had happened recently in America, they made a political choice and set about trying to find a sneaky way to allow not only them, but other businesses to be able to sneak up and cut the hands off of our Second Amendment.
They were using the legal system to tighten gun control, starting with one of the leading retailers in America, that could have caused a bandwagon effect with other shareholders sharing that agenda.
From their website they made this statement about making an impact by “engaging businesses and fellow investors in dialogue on the serious moral, ethical, and business implications of selling guns.”
This is a sigh of relief that we still live in a country that continues to uphold its laws protecting businesses in the retail sales of firearms and ammunition.The heart of the issue is our individual right to buy, carry and defend and it is important for us to be aware of those willing to chip away piece by piece at our freedom.
