I mostly agree, but my personal pet peeve are stores that treat small backpacks as somehow distinct and more of an indicator of theft than giant purses.

If you want to ban bags, do like, say, the Pearl Harbor Memorial and explicitly ban any bags over some certain set of dimensions.

I’ve never had a problem bringing a shoulder bag or small backpack into a store. I’ll infrequently ride a bicycle to Target, Home Depot, Walmart, a gas station or the local grocery store and put everything in my bag after I check out.

At stores with self checkouts, I don’t really see the difference because they’re already placing trust in you anyways.

I don't get it often, but my local Costco had an overzealous receipt checker who'd always ask to check my visibly near-empty small backpack.