When a couple from Dallas excitedly went to Walmart a few days before their wedding so they could pick up 13 of their engagement photos, they got the shock of their lives: a clerk at the megastore handed them 12 prints and a note that reportedly read, “MINUS ONE 5×7. NO WEAPONS.”
Wait—what? Walmart censoring a couple’s engagement picture because it featured a shotgun might be the most Texas story of all time.
According to Dallas-Fort Worth’s WFAA, Stephanie Wehner (an employee at the station) said Walmart poo-pooed her lovely engagement photo with fiancé Mitch Strobl simply because he was holding a shotgun.
Since we know that sentence was the equivalent of a loud record scratch in your head, yes they made a shotgun part of their engagement photo.
“It depicts our love for each other, and I wanted to be able to display those at the reception,” Wehner said. Her fiancé Stobl said she came up with the idea to so they could “include something that is important to us.”
Which is obviously their shotgun. OK, so that’s weird but I’m sure we could say that about a lot of shit, people choose to do in their engagement photos. Let he who is without a bizarre engagement photo idea cast the first stone.
I should also note that Walmart sells Ruger rifles at its store — in addition to other weapons.
Still, that fact was not good enough for the clerk at the Central Expressway and Midpark Road store, who nicely explained to the couple that their photo went against “store policy” because it promoted “gang culture.”
We can understand why Wehner and Strobl, who are set to marry this weekend, might not take that statement too kindly: Strobl actually makes a living creating manuals for hunter safety and outdoor recreation and hunting is a huge part of both of their lives.
Strobl explained that he made sure the action was open so that theirs was a “safe photograph.”
Not wishing to turn this into a debate about the Second Amendment, Wehner, and Strobl say this is really about their First Amendment right to express themselves through photography. They were hoping to display all of their photos at their wedding reception and are trying to find a different place that will process their photo in time.
A Walmart representative, meanwhile, is hoping to set the record straight and confirmed that the company absolutely has no problem processing photos that feature firearms.
“We had a new associate who was misinformed,” a Walmart spokesperson said. “Her actions are not consistent with our policy.”
Banning photos of guns in TEXAS just sounds like a terrible move, business wise. Pictures of people with their guns probably accounts for about 90 percent of the photography in this state.
Watch the video below for more details:
Sources: AWM, USAtoday