I grew up in NH which is a gun-happy state.

My mom worked at Macy's and reported endless problems with organized shoplifting in the 1980's and 1990's. One time a whole family came into the Men's clothing department after her shift, the dad kept the clerk distracted, the mom and the kids took a few racks of suits and loaded them into their car.

She said that the security guards were loathe to use force on anyone because Macy's could get sued; that didn't stop shoplifters from running over a security guard in the parking lot.

I worked at a supermarket where the security was entirely undercover (probably because they were more afraid of us stealing than the customers) and I knew nothing about the security until the day I saw a massively overweight woman tackle a man who was leaving the store.

I read this book

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Mafia-Ethnic-Succession-Organiz...

which describes similar organized theft organizations working in the 1970s, how the goods were fenced, etc.

The 70s 80s and early 90s was the golden age of crime. Short sentences, much more lenient recidivism laws, poor security, a culture that really didn't care that much, no digitsliazation and no tech to easy track stolen goods or id suspects, no smartphones . Multiple types of crimes thrived in that era: bank robbery, drug dealing/distribution, shoplifting, auto theft, and so on. It was pretty bad, even worse than now. The noticeable decline of crime since the 90s according to steven pinker seems to confirm this.

Now is the golden age of shoplifting though. I'm REQUIRED to wear a mask and no one wants to come with in 6ft!!

These comments are ridiculous. Have any of you people saying these things ever actually lived in Texas? Minimum wage chain store employees are not carrying guns. I would discourage you from trying to rob someone's actual house, sure. My wife once called me home to say she thought someone was in the house, and I cleared every single room with an AR-15, and you can believe I would have shot an intruder without a second thought. But a convenience store? No one is taking it personally enough to shoot you for stealing corporate property. If anything, the employees are probably the people most likely to be doing the stealing.

I'm not so sure about that, like someone stealing a few things yeah, no one is going to care enough. But in SF it's common that people walk in and fill up a fucking roller suitcase and then just walk out.

In the south someone is likely going to call you out for that, at which point a confrontation may ensue and it has a much higher likelihood of a gun being involved.

I've been called out by presumably minimum wage employees before for opening food in the gas station while waiting on family members to finish shopping or use the restroom.

There are studies that show people from the south are more aggressive and take much more personal offense to perceived disrespectful behavior.

And what happens if you check the receipt on the body and find out that the item wasn't stolen? How many years do you face for murdering a customer?

I can point to where firearms have stopped shoplifting crimes.

Can you point to where your scenario has happened?

Because I’m all for hypotheticals, so long as we admit the rarity and precedent before saying there is a problem.

Difficulty: It would take maybe, shall we say, ten thousand of your "firearms stopping shoplifting" cases to offset even ONE "innocent person getting shot" case.

Yes. This is exactly what was talking about in my previous post asking for examples to determine how hyperbolic the response was.

> Even though I doubt CVS security guards are trained the shoot shoplifters, the preception that this is a possibility would deter low level criminals tasked with shoplifting

I've never once seen a security guard in a Texas CVS. It actually sounds preposterous to me. Charging $3 for a 20oz soda is the real crime.