Many states are [edit: almost] completely able to stop shoplifters. If yours is not, think long and hard about your choices at the next election.

Edit: I do love the down votes. It kind of proves the point. People want to complain, but don’t want to do anything about it or hold themselves responsible for the fact that they are the ones who chose the situation they are in. Literally. At the ballot box.

▲

stickfigure 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The larceny/theft rate in Kansas City, MO is between 5X and 10X the rate of San Francisco, CA.

Remind me again who I should be voting for?

▲

dmitrygr 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I get you are outraged. It hurts to hear things you dislike, but please, simply go talk to a store owner in CA. Ask them the last time they bothered to call police for shoplifting. Sit down. Think what statistics would show when people GIVE UP on law enforcement.

Or, simply google it, check it on reddit, facebook, nextdoor. It is well understood that police in CA do not respond to thefts and do not care about them. It is internalized to point that nobody bothers to call.

▲

stickfigure an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I get that you listen to fact-free news. But violent crime statistics don't lie and they show that you're much more likely to be victimized in a red state.

I live in California and no, it is not "well understood" that police do not care about thefts. I watched police catch shoplifters right in the middle of SF. As always, cities full of people aren't perfect, but don't imagine for a second that red states have it better.

Tell me, where do you live? I'd like to know what your direct experience of California is.

▲

mothballed 25 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

This is probably going to be an incredibly unpopular comment, but if you look at say homicide rate it looks to matches closer to where black people are than by political party

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/92/In...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Af...

The lowest or next to lowest is New Hampshire.... which is a red state with constitutional carry, very few gun restrictions, no background checks in private transfers, and one of the whitest states in the union next to Vermont (which I think is close to if not #2). NH is red and VT is blue IIRC.

▲

dmitrygr 12 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

6 years in mountain view, CA; 1 in santa calara, CA; 4 more in mountain view, CA with frequent trips into SF proper; 1 in SF proper; 4 more in mountain view, CA. Eventually I got tired of broken car windows and police who never came to investigate. Got tired of hoboes jumping at me with knives and police not responding to calls when i reported it. I left. So the last 4 years - Austin, TX

That's the funniest/saddest part about your comment - i do not need to listen to any "fact-free news" I have the scar from the hobo knife and the voice recordings of police saying "so what do you want us to do? go file a report online, give it to your insurance". It took a while after leaving to finally understand how much I was simply putting up with and considered "part of modern life". The Stockholm Syndrome took a year or so to wear off. Now, when forced to go back to norcal, I notice it a lot more.

	▲	mothballed 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, first time I went to CA I took a train car and this thug was playing some outrageous latino rap music all the way to 12. I already knew what he was fishing for so I didn't say anything and just let him blow my eardrums out rather than get into it. Train car passes through black neighborhood momentarily. Black gangster gets up, tells the hispanic guy it's hood and he better fucking shut that shit off. Knives come out, both sides. I get trapped between. In AZ I'd have a knife or something even better to defend myself, but naturally this is California where only the criminals are armed on public transit and to go through a city with a gun is a legal minefield. So I'm just trapped between two gangsters fighting with my proverbial pants down. I ended up snaking around them before they got to slashing and then hung out in the other end of the knife-fight sardine can until we came to the next stop. Would the same thing have happened in AZ? Yeah probably, but in that case, I wouldn't be crammed in a corner with my proverbial pants down with nothing to defend myself. If you depend on the police to save you you're probably safer in CA, if you depend on yourself you're probably safer in AZ.

▲

MisterTea an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> GIVE UP on law enforcement.

From my point of view law enforcement gave up.

▲

wat10000 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What state has a zero shoplifting rate? You're being downvoted because you made a politically motivated statement that's very clearly untrue.

▲

dmitrygr 3 hours ago | parent [-]

If the statement that actually enforcing law will lower crime is politically motivated, then I’m afraid to ask what statement isn’t. Is it OK to state that 2+2 = 4, or does that have political undertones too?

▲

jfyi 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

To be fair... you didn't make the statement that "enforcing law will lower crime". You made the statement that "Many states are completely able to stop shoplifters", which is hyperbole at best and a bad faith argument at worst.

▲

freedomben 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Note that you didn't answer the question about which state has zero shoplifting.

> Many states are completely able to stop shoplifters.

In your defense, you didn't claim zero explicitly (but did heavily imply it), but you also ignored the question

	▲	dmitrygr 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No state has zero, many have very much less than others and do not see need to close stored due to loss or lock up basics behind plastic doors. Living in a few states in close succession really shows it off. Living in CA desensitizes you to it, until you go somewhere else and realize just how much desensitized to it you've become.

▲

wat10000 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You didn't say that "actually enforcing law will lower crime." You said "Many states are completely able to stop shoplifters." And then you tied it to voting. The initial statement is bullshit and the tie to voting makes it politically-motivated bullshit.

▲

dmitrygr 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I've seen a shoplifter tackled to ground in AZ by loss prevention a few times. One resulted in a broken nose. I bet that person will not shoplift again. And I spent years in CA watching shoplifters walk out and store personnel saying they are NOT allowed to do anything and they were told to not call police since they do nothing and waste time. Difference? one state voted to decriminalize shoplifting below a certain amount and one did not.

	▲	wat10000 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Shoplifting is criminal in both CA and AZ. If this is some "it's just a misdemeanor which isn't really criminal" nonsense, misdemeanors are still crimes, and the threshold for a felony is actually slightly higher in AZ ($1,000 versus $950).