ROGERS, Ark., May 31 (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc , the world's No. 1 retailer and the biggest seller of firearms in the United States, is dropping out of a U.S. conservative advocacy group that has been a lightning rod over voting and gun laws.
Wal-Mart said late Wednesday it is suspending membership in the American Legislative Council (ALEC), which the retailer joined in 1993.
ALEC sparked controversy recently because of its involvement in voting laws and in "stand your ground" gun laws, including the one under scrutiny in the Florida killing of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in February.
A coalition of liberal advocates targeted the group for its support of the self-defense laws.
ALEC, which serves as a forum for corporations and mostly Republican state lawmakers and lobbyists to discuss model legislation, has been criticized by liberals for promoting laws that require photo identification to vote.
ColorOfChange, a liberal advocacy group for black Americans, has said the voting laws put the poor and minorities at a disadvantage.
In April, ALEC said it was abandoning the committee that worked on "public safety and elections" to focus on the economy. Despite the change, Wal-Mart decided it was no longer focused on the same issues as the council.
Big whoop... Walmart is STILL the largest seller of firearms. That's the bottom line, and that's their bottom line. And thanks for the reminder. I need to restock some of my ammo.
Media pundits and hoplophobes tell them to eschew NRA-pushed "stand your ground" laws (never mind that the laws were actually modeled after English Common Law of the 1500s and also may have little or nothing to do with the Zimmerman-Martin mess, but that's another debate) and they lock-step in. No investigation regarding the content of the law, which is very strict and narrow in the definition of where the use of deadly force is actually permitted.
I recently read a little treatise about the voter ID point as well. I'll reproduce it here - courtesy of Alan Korwin. I kind of like the idea that only tax-payers should vote:
"College students will need better ID to take exams than people living in America will need to vote for president of the United States or any other elected office, if certain powerful lobbying groups have their way. Student IDs for exams is already a done deal.
Many democrats and illegal-alien support groups are fighting against common-sense measures to require people to identify themselves when they go to polls to vote. Only citizens are supposed to vote in elections, but it has been shown that illegal aliens and others, including dogs and the dead, are often registered to vote, and sometimes do, sometimes more than once per election.
Vote fraud happens at three steps in the political process. First there's registration, where ineligibles are sometimes registered, or people register in multiple districts. Second, at the polls themselves, ineligibles, illegals, unregistereds and multiple voters can turn up and cast ballots without ID. Finally, during the counting process, numerous problems have been detected with everything from dimpled chads, to electronic-device malfunctions or malfeasance, lost ballot boxes, and deliberate chicanery in the counting process.
The powerful illegal-alien lobby claims that requiring positive ID, or any ID, places an unfair burden on disadvantaged minorities, people of color, underrepresented masses, the poor, welfare cases, the illiterate and the proletariat. Requiring a person to be who they say they are when they vote, will disenfranchise a political underclass, generally supporters of welfare democrats.
Balancing this notion is the controversial movement to restrict voting to only people who pay taxes, since it is their money that hangs in the balance and runs government. People who pay nothing and are "free riders" on the system, should be limited in what they can do to tip the system to their benefit.
A more dramatic and more controversial idea is floating to limit voting to people who understand politics and know what's going on. That, of course, would limit voting to exactly no one, since, despite all the bluster, no one ever really knows what's really going on, not even the president or the smartest person on the planet."
