News/Commentary

BBC journo lit up after he called Walmart BB gun a ‘rifle’ in smug post: ‘no wonder you guys lost the war’

April 27, 2022 | | Print Article

When it comes to social media, it’s hard these days to determine who is being serious and who is being sarcastic, and a BBC journalist on a work trip to the U.S. certainly blurred those lines in a tweet he shared about Walmart selling rifles.

Journalist Padraig Belton took to Twitter on Tuesday to share his conundrum of not having the right plug to fit adapters in the United States — we must presume he’s being serious, as the reporter described himself as “well travelled” and has reported from numerous war zones, according to the Daily Mail.

“Hello, I am a well travelled journalist and also it only occurred to me, at 1 am when I sat down to file my piece, that the US has US-style plugs,” Belton tweeted.

He followed up on that tweet with a photograph of a BB gun for sale at a Walmart store in Hallandale Beach, Florida, presumably mistaking it for a real firearm — his photo featured Red Ryder Carbine and Powerline Model 880 BB guns from Daisy, as well as a Crosman 760 Pumpmaster BB gun.

“Hi from America. Where Walmart doesn’t have a plug adapter for my UK laptop. But on the other hand, I can buy a rifle and ammunition,” Belton tweeted.

The great irony here is that Walmart does sell firearms and ammunition in about half of its 4,700 U.S. locations, particularly in more rural areas where hunting is popular. In 2015, Walmart did announce that it had stopped selling modern sporting rifles, including the AR-15.

“We also do not sell handguns, except in Alaska where we feel we should continue to offer them to our customers,” the company aid in a statement at the time.

The best response to Belton’s tweet, perhaps, stated: “My brother in Christ it’s no wonder you guys lost the war.”

The tweet released an avalanche of snark and other reactions, all of which makes it rather clear that England will never live down losing the Revolutionary War to American patriots.

Here’s a quick sampling of some of the responses from Twitter:

Tom Tillison
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