New Kmart Policy Shows Lack of Concern for Lives and Safety of Low Income and Minority Customers

New Kmart Policy Caves In To Blackmail By Anti-Self-Defense Fanatics, With Effects Similar to KKK-inspired Laws That Were Designed To Disarm "The Wrong Kind Of People". Why Does Kmart Implement A Policy Which Has The Disproportionate Effect Of Discriminating Against Low-Income and Minority Customers?

July 7, 2001 - FraudFactor - Kmart Corporation (KmartCorp.com/corp), a $40-billion company with more than 2,100 retail stores nationwide, recently agreed to stop selling handgun ammunition when they caved in to noted propaganda film-maker Michael Moore's implied threat to attack Kmart.  Kmart management announced a new policy that is likely to handicap law-abiding citizens seeking to defend themselves while doing nothing to reduce crime. The new policy not only shows a serious lack of concern for the lives and safety of their customers, it will probably have its greatest negative effect on low income and minority customers and employees.

This new policy expands a previous similar policy wherein Kmart stopped selling rifles and shotguns to its customers, which would be especially bad for the lower income and minority customers. Under the latest policy, Kmart will immediately stop selling firearm ammunition, which will make it even more difficult for its predominantly lower income and minority customers to defend themselves and their loved ones, since there are few specialty firearms stores in those neighborhoods.

This policy seems to indicate that Kmart executives do not trust their low income and minority customers, nor do those rich, well-protected executives respect their customers' natural rights of self-defense and their Constitutional right to own firearms for self-defense and other lawful purposes. This policy conforms to the racial stereotype that low income and minority people cannot be trusted, that they are inherently prone to violence, and that their lives are not worth protecting.

This policy has led many former Kmart customers to boycott all Kmart stores. However, other customers have complained that they would like to boycott Kmart but they cannot afford to shop at more expensive stores. Is it possible that Kmart executives included this factor in their calculations when they announced their new policy, with its discriminatory overtones?

This Kmart policy operates in the same manner as the earliest known gun control law, passed in Georgia in 1640, and the Black Codes passed after the Civil War. The 1640 Georgia law prohibited people of color from owning firearms. And the first "Saturday Night Special" prohibitions were Black Codes enacted after the Civil War to prevent the freed slaves and low income whites from owning firearms. Like their modern day counter-parts, these laws used price discrimination to disarm and render helpless the freed slaves and lower income whites. These laws banned handguns that were not of the type and cost of the Colt Army Revolver and the Colt Navy Revolver, which were prohibitively expensive for the targeted groups.

Kmart Corporation faced another boycott after their official spokeswoman, wealthy television celebrity Rosie O'Donnell, used her television show to promote the "Million Mom March" against firearm ownership, and the outright ban and confiscation of firearms from the law-abiding public. As it turned out, O'Donnell did not practice what she preached, but instead was exposed as an elitist hypocrite. Multi-millionaire O'Donnell protected her family with a bodyguard armed with a firearm while lobbying to disarm more than one hundred million law-abiding American firearm owners. Under pressure, Kmart stopped using O'Donnell as their official spokesperson. After this embarrassment for Kmart and O'Donnell, one observer suggested that the "Million Mom March" change its name to the "Dangerous Uninformed Mommies Brigade", or DUMB for short.

It appears that Kmart executives do not practice what they preach in their advertising campaigns. A Kmart press release, dated Jan. 19, 2001, states, 'Kmart today debuted its first-ever television spot celebrating the diversity of Kmart's customer and associate base. Featuring Grammy-award winning gospel singer CeCe Winans, "Share the Word" encourages viewers to pledge to "...honor and respect the many cultures of our society" and to "recognize the significance of all races, without prejudice." ' It appears that Kmart's advertising campaign is designed to gain the trust of low income and minority customers while establishing dangerous and discriminatory policies directed against those same customers.

Low income and minority communities often have higher crime rates because they have lower private firearm ownership rates, and their right to self defense is often restricted by gun control laws enacted by Democrat political machines in big cities. These gun control laws are often selectively enforced to target low income and minority citizens.

The last twenty years of scientific criminological research shows that gun control increases violent crime, by shifting the balance of power to favor criminals, while it disarms helpless victims. Furthermore, numerous academic and government studies (see: studies by Prof. Gary Kleck and Profs. Wright, Rossi, and Daly) have shown that gun control never reduces crime, and that gun control costs thousands of lives each year, and endangers everyone including those who choose not to own firearms. Firearms are the safest and most affordable means of reliable self-protection. Multiple studies show that:

1. Defense with a firearm is significantly safer and more effective than any other method, including non-resistance;
2. Firearms are used at least five times more often in the U.S. for self-defense by ordinary people than they are misused in all crimes, suicides, and accidents combined;
3. There are approximately 2.6 million defensive uses of firearms each year in the U.S. by ordinary people, almost always without shooting the attacker - mere possession and display is almost always an adequate defense; and
4. Armed citizens provide substantial crime control and deterrent effects that rival those of the criminal justice system.

If you wish to provide Kmart feedback about their new and previous policy, you may find some of the contact information below to be useful.

Call the Kmart Customer Care Network
toll-free at 1-866-KMART4U (1-866-562-7848)

The Kmart Corporate Giving Policy:
"Organizations funded will create opportunities for partnership visibility."
http://www.KmartCorp.com/corp/community/funds/index.stm
Kmart Corporate Contributions Committee
3100 West Big Beaver Road
Troy, MI 48084-3163 

Kmart's web links are as follows:

http://www.KmartCorp.com/corp/
http://www.KmartCorp.com/corp/story/pressrelease/index.stm
http://www.BlueLight.com/

Investor Relations:
http://www.KmartCorp.com/corp/investor/general/index.stm

Board of Directors:
http://www.KmartCorp.com/corp/investor/general/directors2.stm

Board of Directors Compensation:
http://www.KmartCorp.com/corp/investor/proxy/executive.stm

Kmart Executive Leadership Team
http://www.KmartCorp.com/corp/investor/general/directors.stm
 

A Kmart Press Release dated April 24, 2001, announcing an executive resignation, provides the following contact information:
http://www.KmartCorp.com/corp/story/pressrelease/news/pr010424.stm
Mark Schwartz, Kmart President and COO;
Chuck Conaway, Kmart Chairman and CEO; and
Mary Lorencz, Director, Corporate Media Relations, (248) 463-1021.

Kmart Press Release dated Jan. 19, 2001, announcing Kmart's "diversity" advertising campaign.
http://www.KmartCorp.com/corp/story/pressrelease/news/pr010119.stm

The Kmart contacts for this press release are as follows:

January 19, 2001

Contact:
Susan Dennis, Kmart Corporation, (248) 463-1021
Michele Y. Edwards, Don Coleman Advertising, (248) 223-8953