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That seems to suggest that folks who have goods stolen from their stores would be justified in using violence to stop the thieves? Though the police doing it fo

That seems to suggest that folks who have goods stolen from their stores would be justified in using violence to stop the thieves? Though the police doing it for them would be better? I don't see property crimes like shoplifting as justifying violence (armed robbery, sure, but not five-fingering stuff). Does it raise insurance rates for retailers? Sure. Does that raise prices for honest shoppers, yes also. So it's crappy, but attacking the thieves doesn't pass a proportionate response sniff test for me.

AbrahamParangi 4y ago
Violence is an absolute requirement for the existence of law. If you have a law saying “you can’t do X” there needs to be some system that enforces the law. Law enforcement cannot exist without actual violence or the threat of violence. I believe what you’re really asking is if law is justified, since it requires violence against people breaking it. Edit: fwiw there is a somewhat extreme libertarian ideology that holds exactly this so you wouldn’t be alone
DoneWithAllThat 4y ago
What is your proposed mechanism of enforcement of laws against robbery?
analyte123 4y ago
What if someone was stealing your property? Let’s say a week or two of income worth. You would just let them walk away with it?
- epicureanideal 4y ago
  And then imagine that it happens week after week after week. “It’s just money”, some people say, but it’s the money that person is trading hours, days, years of their life for. It keeps them away from their family. It pays for their kids’ medical expenses. It pays for the meager savings they save up by skipping meals so they can take their family on a small vacation once per year.
- blacksmith_tb 4y ago
  Well, in the case of personal property, I would, yes - it's insured? It'd have to be something pretty important for me to feel like attacking the thief, unless they were threatening me or my family. I sympathize with retailers getting robbed repeatedly, and obviously that'd make you angry, potentially desperate, (and I expect judges might be more sympathetic if they resorted to violence), but what I'm sensing in this thread is a "kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out" approach to rule-breaking, which I can't get on board with. Self-defense can be proportionate, or not - shooting someone who shoved you is not going to pass that test in most courts.
Unklejoe 4y ago
> That seems to suggest that folks who have goods stolen from their stores would be justified in using violence to stop the thieves? I’d be happy with a store owner not being liable for injuries if they tackle someone who is trying to steal from their store and the thief ends up getting hurt. I don’t think they should be able to start blasting thieves with a gun but you should be able to use some reasonable amount of force. Let a judge decide whether it was reasonable or not.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  If you were a shop owner, would you be willing to risk a fight with a homeless person over a few 10's of dollars of goods? How much do you think an ER visit would cost? A gun takes away that risk, but brings others.
valdiorn 4y ago
This is an incredibly naive view of the world. Violence is, whether you like it or not, the absolute apex power, from which all other power is derived. Laws only hold power because if you break them, someone will forcefully put you in jail, and hurt you if you try to escape. If your punishment is a fine rather than jail time, someone will forcefully remove money from your bank account or valuable items from your house, and they will use force and potentially hurt you if you don't comply. I might not agree with shooting shoplifters in the back but if the police won't investigate and stop even organized shoplifting (they're boasting about doing this just very recently, hence the article) at some point you have to be allowed to open up some level of enforcement and use of violence to the public, because otherwise bad behaviour is rewarded. Maybe you beat them up or publicly humiliate them, which is often seen in less developed countries. But I'd much prefer the police just enforce the law, and retain their monopoly on violence.

AbrahamParangi 4y ago

Violence is an absolute requirement for the existence of law. If you have a law saying “you can’t do X” there needs to be some system that enforces the law. Law enforcement cannot exist without actual violence or the threat of violence. I believe what you’re really asking is if law is justified, since it requires violence against people breaking it. Edit: fwiw there is a somewhat extreme libertarian ideology that holds exactly this so you wouldn’t be alone

DoneWithAllThat 4y ago

What is your proposed mechanism of enforcement of laws against robbery?

analyte123 4y ago

What if someone was stealing your property? Let’s say a week or two of income worth. You would just let them walk away with it?

epicureanideal 4y ago
And then imagine that it happens week after week after week. “It’s just money”, some people say, but it’s the money that person is trading hours, days, years of their life for. It keeps them away from their family. It pays for their kids’ medical expenses. It pays for the meager savings they save up by skipping meals so they can take their family on a small vacation once per year.
blacksmith_tb 4y ago
Well, in the case of personal property, I would, yes - it's insured? It'd have to be something pretty important for me to feel like attacking the thief, unless they were threatening me or my family. I sympathize with retailers getting robbed repeatedly, and obviously that'd make you angry, potentially desperate, (and I expect judges might be more sympathetic if they resorted to violence), but what I'm sensing in this thread is a "kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out" approach to rule-breaking, which I can't get on board with. Self-defense can be proportionate, or not - shooting someone who shoved you is not going to pass that test in most courts.

Unklejoe 4y ago

> That seems to suggest that folks who have goods stolen from their stores would be justified in using violence to stop the thieves? I’d be happy with a store owner not being liable for injuries if they tackle someone who is trying to steal from their store and the thief ends up getting hurt. I don’t think they should be able to start blasting thieves with a gun but you should be able to use some reasonable amount of force. Let a judge decide whether it was reasonable or not.

hotpotamus 4y ago
If you were a shop owner, would you be willing to risk a fight with a homeless person over a few 10's of dollars of goods? How much do you think an ER visit would cost? A gun takes away that risk, but brings others.

valdiorn 4y ago

This is an incredibly naive view of the world. Violence is, whether you like it or not, the absolute apex power, from which all other power is derived. Laws only hold power because if you break them, someone will forcefully put you in jail, and hurt you if you try to escape. If your punishment is a fine rather than jail time, someone will forcefully remove money from your bank account or valuable items from your house, and they will use force and potentially hurt you if you don't comply. I might not agree with shooting shoplifters in the back but if the police won't investigate and stop even organized shoplifting (they're boasting about doing this just very recently, hence the article) at some point you have to be allowed to open up some level of enforcement and use of violence to the public, because otherwise bad behaviour is rewarded. Maybe you beat them up or publicly humiliate them, which is often seen in less developed countries. But I'd much prefer the police just enforce the law, and retain their monopoly on violence.