We’re Haunted by the Liminal Space That is the Walmart Gun Counter

One of the interesting things about the internet that it gives you the ability to choose your own culture. Want to hang out with older people who complain about most of the same stuff all the time? Facebook’s the place. Want to get edgy and randomly argue with Nazis? Head over to X/Twitter (or whatever Elon’s calling it when you read this). If you want to be protected from dealing with viewpoints with which you disagree, Bluesky is your destination.

Even within social media networks (which algorithmically feed you what you want to see), you can find people who share your common interests.

We all share the same internet, but my kids are always coming up with different stuff that their age group is talking about. Yes, I’m technically old by teenager standards — I recently hit the big four zero — but I’m constantly finding out that I’m more out of touch than I thought. Things like the horrors of “the backrooms,” Mystery Flesh Pit National Park, and “liminal spaces,” along with the possibility of being trapped there forever, really do live in young minds.

I recently came across a social media post that perfectly captures something gun people can probably relate to even more: the vaguely disturbing feeling many of us get from the Walmart gun and knife counter…or in many places, the former gun and knife counter.

Like “the backrooms,” these are abandoned or semi-abandoned spaces that contain a completely different kind of horror.

Here’s the full text that accompanies the image in the tweet above . . .

A reasonable man might assume this normal-looking sporting goods counter would be the place to buy a hunting license and a box of .308 on a Sunday afternoon.

However, no such thing will ever happen. No one works here. The store is empty of people and you have an uneasy feeling.

You see, sandwiched between the toys and the automotive departments in your local podunk Walmart there is a dimensional rift, an invisible gap in reality, which you passed through unwittingly.

You are now in a non-place. A void containing only the mirrored reflection of something familiar. A forgotten, oxbow lake of spacetime.

Oblivious to your existential nightmare, you stand there at the counter waiting.

You will never get your license or your ammo. You will never go home. You will wait here, alone, under buzzing fluorescent lights and ceiling speakers excreting muzak, for all eternity.

Except, you don’t know this and you never will.

How long have you been here, you wonder. Hard to say. You don’t remember arriving.

Perhaps you’ve never been anywhere else.

Can one literally be forever stuck at a dead Walmart gun counter, endlessly awaiting a chance to buy some ammo? Probably not. But there’s a part of us that’s forever stuck there. It was once a place (especially in smaller towns, but not in the smallest) where you’d find anything you needed for target shooting, hunting, personal defense, and much more. That has slipped away, however, and has been removed from the public world to varying degrees. Some counters now only sell rifle ammo. Others seem to sell nothing at all now.

There’s often a glimmer of a hope that it’s coming back. That we dirty gun people might once again be allowed to transact business in polite society. At my local store, the sporting goods guy continually claims that the return of pistol ammo for sale at the Walmart gun counter is just around the corner. But that never quite happens.

Somewhere in the back of our minds or souls, that place is still open. The fact that those counters sit there empty and unmanned today conflicts with that. With all of the good memories and the seemingly endless war against us, our hobbies and our culture, the empty Walmart counter is a lot more than just a counter. It’s a symbol and a monument to a lot more than that.

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10 thoughts on “We’re Haunted by the Liminal Space That is the Walmart Gun Counter”

  1. I happened to see the announcement fairly quickly on that other site that Walmart would stop selling pistol and scary rifle ammo. I immediately headed down there to stock up on cheap ammo one last time. I was first in line. By the time he was ringing me up, a long line had formed behind me. The funny thing about them getting rid of the “scary” ammo is that they still sell .308. When I check their stocks, I never see anyone working there. Did they ever? Was it all a dream?

    1. Dude you had better luck than I did for when I went to get some of the ammo a good fellow walked in front of me to the counter and he bought a lot of what I would have purchased. Oh well, if only I had been a minute earlier.

  2. This was a disappointing article to read in Shooting News Weekly. Surely this space could have been used more productively. The writer apparently thinks that Walmart gun counters are indicative of a larger problem in the gun world, but throws in so much absurd, teenage nonsense that he barely was able to squeeze in his point, and that none too well. SNW, you can do better. Two thumbs down.

  3. The article is greatly more informative than anything Comrade Kamala spews out in her word salads of stupid and distraction and hypocrisy and lies.

  4. Doesn’t this posting tell us that “gun people” (i. e. 2A defenders) do not constitute so significant a slice of Walmart’s money stream as to protect the corporate income stream? That is, “gun people” are not numerous enough to cause Walmart to consider their interests and choices? Or is it that Walmart people will remain Walmart people for all the other items, regardless of elimination of “gun people” items?

    Walmart is so financially strong, that there will never be a “Bud Lite” moment, and Walmart knows it.

    1. Maybe. Why do they bother with their limited supply of mostly Fudd stock? Is it that profitable for them? Or do they actually worry about a backlash if they drop everything? Like I said, they still sell ammo for an AR-10.

  5. Yep. Went into town to add to the selection of 357 testing ammo, and the wife wanted to swing by Walmart for something. She grabbed a cart, and headed for the back corner, way opposite of where her stuff was. “Why you going that way?” “Sporting goods. You can see what they have while we’re here.” “Ok, you’ll get some extra steps in so won’t be a total waste.” “What?” “You’ll see.” ….. “Well, do they have any 357?” “No, haven’t for a few years now.” “Why didn’t you tell me?” “You wouldn’t have believed me. You’re a visual learner.” “I’ll learn you. Picture the pots & pans aisle. I want to try a new skillet.”

    After that fiasco, we went to Dunham’s, where they’ve quietly brought back some stuff. They had a few different 38s and 357s on sale, so I snagged some plus another brick of 22 for cheap.

  6. Just Sayin (OG)

    Got curious once and searched for Wallworld Board of Directors.
    It is filled w/ woke muggles that are blood prodigy of Sam I Am, founder of Wallyworld, He who would help bring the World of Chinesium into the American household like a tsunami. Board members are mostly under 45yrs old, primarily liberal Demorats, and unabashedly & extremely wealthy. They also don’t give a rats patoohey about American values or morality (do those even exist anymore?), but are business savvy enough to know how to use marketing to their advantage. All they want is your money. And your neighbors’ $$ also.

  7. “Want to get edgy and randomly argue with Nazis? Head over to X/Twitter (or whatever Elon’s calling it when you read this).”

    I suggest the author do at least a minimum of research before publishing such obviously blatant anti-X(or Elon Musk) bias as the change is well-documented.

    The quoted post is creative fiction styled after “The Twilight Zone” but not the reality I’ve experienced at any local Walmart; I can get service in the sporting goods department whenever I want whether or not an employee is already present. I can, however, reliably find it between toys and automotive.