McBuck,
Many people get disenchanted with the knowledge of the clerk in the sporting guns section, especially that portion involving firearms in any manner, especially ammunition, but...
Expecting a minimum wage employee who might be in sporting goods today and electronics tomorrow and perhaps who knows where the next day to have a serious working knowledge of each product in each section is simply not practical.
When we go to buy ammo at Wally World (or hopefully anything else) we generally know going in what it is that we wish to buy.. We can pretty quickly look at the shelves and see right off the bat whether or not our chosen fodder is in stock or there is an empty space where we want our specific ammo to normally reside.
About the only things we need a clerk for is to take our money, put the purchased ammunition in the plastic bag and wish us a merry day..
There COULD be times when we foolishly expect that person to know when the missing stock will be replenished but chances are IF that person offers such information it's a guess at best.
And when you ask that same person whether or not a particular WalMart is discontinuing ammo sales altogether you are asking the wrong person, because chances are NO person employed by WalMart at that location, including the store manager, has any idea...
Those decisions are made by the bean counters in Arkansas and I'm not sure even they know from one day to the next what corporate decisions are being made about much of anything.
WalMart is above all things, profit driven. As long as selling gun ammunition is profitable for them, and they can't make more profitable use of the shelf space with something else, they'll be selling ammunition.
WalMart has no interest in discontinuing a profitable item unless they feel they can better use the space. Since ammo is just a "sub-section" of all things sporting in the store (fishing gear/hunting gear/camping gear,etc) I believe in most places they'll keep selling ammunition for a long, long time.
Obviously there are sections of the country where ammunition sales are a bigger deal than some others.. I know here in the South hunting and shooting is pretty much a big deal.
Not sure about New Jersey..
Just rambling, no offense.
Best Wishes,
jesse
P.S. It is NOT a surprise to me that WalMark is discontinuing the sale of firearms... ATF is making life hell for dedicated gun dealers, and all paperwork now must be done PERFECTLY, correctly, and timely. Even some gun shops are finding this out now the hard way, and WalMart employees simply cannot be expected to have those special skills required to make sure paperwork is done properly, and it's easier for WalMart to just stop selling guns altogether than to train specific employees to do it right.