Not too surprised. Living in the US, giving a shit about the safety of owned property is pretty much the only thing you can count on.
Property is more important than lives. Where else would people literally say they’d shoot someone for going on “their” land.
In the US, we have a phrase for the mindset you’re describing:
“Fuck you, I got mine.”
That phrase is absolutely not said about self defense…
Not necessarily, but it’s an easy way to describe our view of others in our society in general. Not much faith in our fellow humans.
Classic American, extending their personhood to the items they own. Get a grip, your wallet is not you and you’re not defending yourself if it’s stolen.
Your inability to grasp that people value the product of their time as much as their time itself shows you are pathetically disconnected from reality yourself. Grow up and stop relying on mommy and daddy’s allowance they give you for doing nothing with your sad life.
In another comment you talk about fascists taking over the world, yet here you are, spouting what a fascist would say in regards to private property, while a socialist would understand the difference between personal property and private property and understands the dangers of the latter. Get educated, schlub. You’re spouting the kind of idiocy that enabled the fascists to take over.
Also I’m in my forties living with cancer in the USA where the treatments cost $18k a month without insurance. Dear god I only wish I had mommy and daddy taking care of me.
I don’t know about you, but my wallet only holds plastic cards… All of which can be cancelled, replaced, and any money spent by the thief returned and restored. The only thing it takes up is a small amount of my personal time. So I really haven’t lost anything at all. I don’t know why you’re so geared up to fuck someone up over such a small inconvenience.
Your semmantic games are not appreciated. Fuck off dummy.
Because replacing said property costs money, money they generally don’t have. Being poor in the US is a cruel hell and they don’t seem to plan on fixing it any time soon so violence it is.
Yep. Don’t ever bother with de-escalation when you know no safety net will save you. You have to go all in, or you are left behind, or dead.
Not the world I like living in, but that’s the world I’m currently living in. Hell, my father was robbed several times growing up, so he made sure to teach my sibling and I how to be wary and catch people in the act.
Yep. Don’t ever bother with de-escalation when you know no safety net will save you. You have to go all in, or you are left behind, or dead.
I love love love how everyone just assumes they will win these fights and they won’t end up dead anyway trying to protect their pittance of property. What a fucking unhinged way to live.
Guess what, you don’t always win just because you’re in the right.
I certainly don’t like the situation, but the amount of people who are chomping at the bit to attack others are far greater than those who don’t want to. I would likely have to hand over everything if I had a gun pointed at me, but usually the best way to avoid that risk is to avoid being there. Staying away from crowds, either trying to bluff/strike/capitulate with those who try to attack you, or just not trusting anyone.
This is why bystander effect is a real issue when it comes to situations in the US where people are injured or need help - the risk of being robbed, defrauded, or sued means it’s a far easier choice to keep moving and not think about those around you.
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When US Americans get painted this way, it feels like a “Humans- Fuck Yeah” story. Like I’m just so used to us having our downsides highlighted that it feels special to be seen for a positive attribute
It’s a bit like learning that Russian cargo ships don’t get boarded by pirates because they’ll just start fucking shooting.
Say what you want about Russians, but that kind of rules.
Russians are the scariest white people.
Finland slaughtered them something like with a ver lopsided ratio in the winter war. The Finns are pretty white.
Yeah, but Finns are pretty nice (if socially awkward) when you don’t fuck with them. Wouldn’t count on that with Russians.
Russians can be nice too, it’s just that mostly, not unlike the Finnish, they don’t give a fuck about you in general.
TIL Ukrainians aren’t white
/S
Ukrainians aren’t as scary as Russians, they don’t go invading other countries.
Yeah if I shared a border with Ukraine I wouldn’t be the least bit scared of them. If I shared a border with Russia I’d have a nuclear program.
Only if you’re their wives after a few bottles.
Russians are pathetic malnourished drunkards, not scary.
Hey, nothing scarier than a drunk dumbass with little to lose. Same reason crossing the wrong Americans is trouble, too.
I feel like these stories provide second-hand catharsis, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily a positive light.
Yeah seems like committing a violent crime in response to a petty crime to me.
Yes, but in America it is acceptable to shoot an unarmed teenager running away for stealing a candy bar, so not exactly preaching to the choir here
Hell, there’s at least one story of a black teenager being shot because he rang someone’s doorbell to ask for help.
Humans work off of incentives and risk. If there’s essentially no consequences for pickpocketting and the incentive is quite high with expensive phones and cash potential, the balance is way out of proportion. A good chance of getting your shit rocked brings it a bit more in line.
The possibility of getting shot or stabbed is way out of proportion the other way. That’s the problem with America. You can’t even give someone the bird when they nearly crash into you without fear of getting shot.
I don’t agree with characterizing being robbed from as not a big deal, especially when it’s as physically intimate as pickpocketing.
Maybe it’s no big deal to lose a bit of money if you’re rich, but I would be truly fucked to lose my phone or wallet, and more than inconvenienced to lose money or objects which would need to be replaced with money.
But more than that is the sense of violation. What gives someone the right to come into my home or put hands on my body and take my personal things? It’s dehumanizing. It feels disgusting to be treated that way. Of course I’m going to defend myself.
Pickpocketing is non violent. It is theft.
Robbery involves the use or threat of violence. It is a violent crime.
The two should not be conflated in either direction. Also pickpocketing does not happen at peoples homes, but in public spaces. This is different from break-ins which are a more serious crime as they violate the private living spaces of people on top of violating their property rights.
My reponse would be extremely violent if I were to be pick pocketed that’s for sure. I would not even feel bad at their injuries.
And no one would feel bad when the police in a country with reasonable laws takes you to jail for assaulting someone because of petty theft.
What is this Judge Dredd garbage people from the US often seem so proud of? That stand your ground thinking is only accepted in the violent bubble you guys seem to live in and accept as normal. It’s not normal anywhere else. This is why your police can kill unarmed people on video every week with zero consequences, and with no one batting an eye. Even in the most repressive societies, the security forces have the good sense of killing people in secret, not on video every week. This level of violence is not normal, and you as a regular person don’t benefit by internalizing it as your personal life philosophy.
You weren’t raised by wolves. You wouldn’t get it.
Edit* Found and read the article, it never said the Americans beating up the pickpockets got charged with anything. Shit one had fake elctric wallets to shock the shit out of thieves and only got em confiscated. Seems to me more beat downs would be welcome by the French police of pick pockets. Unless they’re on the take.
Your attempt at the high road is hilariously pathetic and ignorant to the world.
I don’t think whether an attack is physically violent should play a role in whether someone is allowed to use violence to defend themselves. Plenty of forms of sexual assault are non-violent in the sense that they don’t cause bodily harm to the victim, but I still think you should be allowed to resort to violent methods of stopping/preventing them. Things like gropings, upskirt photography, etc are a form of psychological violence in my opinion.
This is different from break-ins which are a more serious crime as they violate the private living spaces of people on top of violating their property rights.
What is the reasoning behind this distinction? Are you suggesting it’s okay to defend your home with violence?
To come at this from another angle, do you think theft should be legal? If not, why is it okay for the state to enact violence on perpetrators, but not victims?
Dude, i didnt make any remark on what forms of self defense are appropriate. I merely pointed out that robbery is a violent crime, wheras theft is not.
Subsequently robbery is facing harsher sentences than simple theft and it is important to distinguish the two, or any other forms of crime for that matter. There is a reason why all sorts of crime have been defined specifically and differently from each other.
Pickpocketing is robbery, my guy.
Just because it is done stealthily doesn’t mean i wasn’t robbed of my goods
Pickpocketing is a form of larceny that involves the stealing of money or other valuables from the person or a victim’s pocket without them noticing the theft at the time.
Robbery[a] is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear; that is, it is a larceny or theft accomplished by an assault.[2] Precise definitions of the offence may vary between jurisdictions. Robbery is differentiated from other forms of theft (such as burglary, shoplifting, pickpocketing, or car theft) by its inherently violent nature (a violent crime); whereas many lesser forms of theft are punished as misdemeanors, robbery is always a felony in jurisdictions that distinguish between the two.
Yeah let’s get dragged into semantics.
Does violence only happen in physical form? Because the time I was pickpocketed left me paranoid for years. The violence inflicted upon me didn’t leave me physically hurting, you’re definitely correct there.
It left me emotionally fucked for years.
I think you’re mixing up the words “theft” and “robbery”. Robbery always specifically indicates violence.
So they make the internet worse for poor people? I could get through 20k in a second, but someone with just an old laptop would take a few minutes, no?
Couldn’t give less of a fuck, if someone steals from me they’re gonna face the consequences
I interpreted it as a negative, like “Americans are violent,” heh.
Is it?
I sympathize with the complex though.
We have a hyper sense of justice instilled in us from a young age. It’s like the basis of our country (or so we’re taught).
I’d say it’s more about retribution. There’s a craving for punishment against perceived wrongs.
I don’t disagree. Basically what we’re told justice is.
There’s nothing perceived about someone snatching my wallet. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I get it, but it has to be obvious how quickly this logic can spiral, though.
If I come around a corner and find you putting the boots to someone begging you to stop, you’re getting smoked by the biggest thing I can find. I don’t know the context. Violence to stop violence is measured.
Being wronged isn’t a carte blanche. As soon as you introduce violence, suddenly violence actually becomes the measured response against YOU.
Being wronged isn’t a carte blanche. As soon as you introduce violence, suddenly violence actually becomes the measured response against YOU.
am i supposed to ask the robber nicely to give me my stuff back?
I mean, it’s a reasonable place to start at the very least?
We’re talking about pickpockets, right?
Someone tried to pickpocket me in Europe on the train. I blocked the door and, despite having no common language, I left them know I was aware they had taken my stuff. I’m pretty sure they understood it was my intention to get it back and that was going to be a hassle for everyone.
They just handed it back and left.
Should I have just started swinging?
Live by the sword, die by the sword, somehow still relevant.
So committing a crime yourself, assault (and/or assault with a deadly weapon), in response to the first crime, pickpocketing, is suddenly totes okay then? I don’t get it. Seems like retributive extrajudicial punishment to me. Just because it’s a real thing that happened and not just perceived doesn’t suddenly absolve you of committing violent crime in return. If you hospitalize the pickpocket and give them a lifelong limp, you’ve given them far more severe and retributive punishment than just taking their wallet in return.
I mean, who knew, maybe this is why we have laws and shit.
It’s not a crime. You can use force to reclaim stolen property. Legally, it gets ‘interesting’ when you involve a weapon in your use of force, because some areas allow the threat of deadly force far before it can actually be used and you’re probably going to expose yourself to legal avenues if the police don’t like you when they show up. But simply kicking someone’s ass after they stole from you? Perfectly permissible.
If you want to talk about the morality of it, that’s a different conversation.
Yes it is totes ok. Encouraged even. Fuck a thief.
If I beat the shit out of a pickpocket and give them a lifelong limp too bad so sad, they have a permanent reminder of the principle of fuck around find out or FAFO. I was minding my own business right until they decided to make themselves my business.
Legality is stupid and does factor into 99% of my actions so I will disregard it as a decision making factor.
I was minding my own business right until they decided to make themselves my business.
Poetry
Lmao you’re unhinged dude. Get a grip and maybe realize the shit in your wallet isn’t more valuable than a human life.
Especially considering its probably all credit and debit cards that you can cancel almost immediately and get any money spent by a thief returned to your accounts. But yeah, someone deserves a lifelong limp because they inconvenienced you. Get the fuck outta here lmao.
You might not support someone like Trump politically but you’re no better than those who voted for him. These attitudes are 100% why US society is deeply fucked, the politics are just a symptom of this violent brainrot.
why are we defending thieves?
You realise beating up a pickpocket is itself a stupid game that will get you in jail, right?
If the idea is that I can’t defend my own property then I understand why pickpocketing is so rampant elsewhere.
I don’t want to kill anybody, but I’m not gonna just hand it over with a smile on my face.
Yeah I feel like I am in crazy town. If you don’t want your ass kicked keep your hands out of my pocket. There will be consequences and they will be lopsided.
You don’t have to want to kill anybody, but it’s still a crime to violently assault someone. Further, you can still kill someone without trying, say you punch him once and he goes lights out and his head hits the concrete so hard it kills him. Doesn’t matter that you didn’t want to, you just killed someone.
Now if you used something defensive like pepper spray so you can escape with your wallet? That’s a different story. There’s a wide gap between protecting your property and assaulting someone.
So like … where is that righteous violence right now? What’s currently happening in the US is way worse than pickpocketing.
These are all the fantasies of people who think they’re the winner in every single outcome.
There’s a significant percentage of Americans that wouldn’t take that as a negative. As in, aren’t just violent, but are proud of being violent and consider it to be a positive quality. Not all of us, but a fair few. Hence you get things like some gun people fantasizing about having someone break in to their house so that they have a justification to shoot someone and feel righteous about it.
I think that’s a positive. Americans, in the absence of law enforcement, will fight to defend themselves and their property (and vicariously, the property of others).
Stopping thievery, is, unto itself, a just cause.
Thieves in the US will just pull a gun on you and turn it into a robbery. It’s simply safer for them to come out of the gate with you at an obvious disadvantage.
Can you draw your weapon before they can pull their trigger? Go ahead, punk. Make my day.
Yeah, this seems to be the most plausible answer here, assuming the baseline claim is true.
It tooke me years to understand that in the US apparently instead of burglars just breaking in, stealing stuff and leaving, “home invasions” are a thing, where people are facing armed robbery in their houses, often including rape. It seems that in the US crime often has a much more violent and hateful component to it than in other western countries.
Around 5 years ago, still in reddit I did a comparison between US and EU crime rates. Despite my prejudice against the US most crimes were fairly similar (robberies, burglaries, assault), it was homicides where the US goes batshit insane.
I believe it must be the availability of guns (even on the defending side, making the criminals more aggressive) that makes a homicide happen alongside a robbery where it does not in EU.
I think it also helps to imagine the irresponsible, aggressive, jackass. A common enough fellow amongst many cultures in their own variety. In most of europe this individual is restricted to bar fights and other less lethal means of conflict. In Switzerland, most folks have a gun but also have military training with it and are less likely to have the issues that cause American veterans to be more likely to be violent.
Meanwhile here in America this jackass can buy a gun after jumping through a few hoops depending on what state. Not only can they own a gun, they may be culturally encouraged to whether it’s because of macho posturing, rural lifestyle, or because of any other number of reasons such as being a minority in the Midwest. Once armed the jackass has the means to engage in high emotional violence. Every “I’ll fucking kill you” that is normally accompanied with a fist may come with lead instead.
Eh our burglaries sometimes turn into sexual violence too even without guns involved. And it should be unferstoo that “home invasion” means everything from a quick burglary while you’re out of town to an armed robbery with rape. But yeah it’s important to understand that we do overly focus on the latter and ignore that the former is far more likely even here, but thieves in America often have guns. Crime is disproportionately violent here, but we also are really focused on the most violent crime because it’s sensational and serves as common excuses for bigotry and for gun ownership.
Like when I suffered a home invasion I became acutely aware of how few people I knew had experienced such a thing (and were willing to volunteer that information). So many people own a gun to deal with a violent robbery with rape, yet few know anyone who’s experienced that, a gun kept safely is unlikely to help, and they’re significantly more likely to be harmed by their own gun than someone else’s.
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I call it colonial trauma. Our forefathers would rape the help and the worse that would happen is getting berated by the judge.
My wife and I were Honeymooning in Paris, purchasing subway passes from an automated kiosk, when a guy who was pretending to be really interested in his phone started getting uncomfortably close to her. She felt him touch her, so she elbowed him real hard, knocking the phone out of his hand, and yelling, “Oh no, are you OK, I’m so sorry, I broke your phone!” real loud (which was true, she cracked his screen). I don’t think he was expecting a 5’2" woman to assault him, because he grabbed his broken phone and started booking it before I could react.
A very nice Parisian came over and told us we needed to be more careful and watch ouf for thieves. We thanked him, but my wife was laughing a few moments later because she just assumed he was a pervert. I thought maybe the phone screen had already been broken, and he was trying to run some sort of, “Hey, you broke my phone, give me money!” scam but chickened out when he saw how aggressively my wife reacted. We live in a major American city, so we’ve experienced crime before, but it never occurred to us that he was trying to pick her pocket. Felt almost quaint, like a Dickens novel.
I live in a tourist trap area of the US and got pick pocketed once shortly after moving here. So I am real cautious of strangers getting close. After doing the Pokemon go rounds one night some dude started following me, and the girl I was dating at the time, from the gas station. I come from a much more densely populated area of the US so I immediately recognized it as a threat, and told her to keep walking and I would catch up. I’ll admit I was a little too aggressive given the situation, cause I saw a “come to jesus” moment in homie’s eyes when he realized how big the dude he was stalking was(I’m easily two standard deviations to the right of bell curve in terms of largeness, but I’m also proportional so most don’t realize it on sight).
I would say I felt bad, but after getting my walker taken and having to go through the bullshit involved, I wasn’t about to take a chance. Funny thing is, the girl actually broke up with me cause of that incident and immediately got with a meth head who took her and her family for what they could.
This story, much like life, has no point other than keep your wallet in a very noticable area.
Edit: Walker=wallet, though i’m not far from a reliance on either.
It’s weird moving to places where the relative danger of different crimes vary.
I grew up in a place where I was mugged at knife point a couple of times. It was a pretty socioeconomically deprived area where this wasn’t normal, but it wasn’t super abnormal either. One of the times I was mugged, I was in a pretty bad place with my mental health, and I said “if you want my phone, then just fucking stab me for it, because I don’t give a fuck anymore”. The guy mugging me seemed to recognise me as someone going through some shit, and became super sympathetic. He even asked me if there was anything he could do to help. A friend who was mugged (at knifepoint) in the same rough area one responded by saying “oh come off it, mate” and continuing walking. It’s like there was a weird sense of solidarity, because we all knew we lived in a shit hole place with no prospects.
I later moved to a much safer city, where being out at night felt tremendously safe. Now, I live in a larger city, and none of my previously cultivated instincts for safety are the right fit. I know that I must be more cautious here than I was in the small, posh city I lived in, but also I feel that the kind of caution I need here is quite different to what was necessary in my home town. Without a calibrated sense of risk in this new city, I often find myself being overly cautious. I suppose that’s a safer side of caution to err on.
You know what’s funny? I got robbed at gunpoint in front of my house. I was wearing a knock off Ulysse Nardin watch, and they didn’t even touch it. They got about $30 from the wallet before being arrested. And no, the cops never gave me my $30.
If I had my wallet stolen, the worst part of it would be having to renew id and stuff. It’s a lot of faff
Real talk. I would’ve gladly given up the money for an easier time getting everything back together.
As we say in the USA:
“The police don’t protect us, we protect us”
There are 7 police officers in my town of 13k. We say “Sometimes there’s justice and sometimes there’s just us”
Whole lee shit this is good! I’ve always heard the adage “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”
And that’s true for both where I’m from(Miami) and where I moved to(the corner of bum fucked & nowhere)
I mean sure, it do be like that but also my old roommate, who never locked his car and kept weed and his work tools in it overnight, every night, walked around our neighborhood with a pistol “looking” for the guys who stole the aforementioned tools and weed.
It happened 3 times…there’s something wrong with alot of us
Did he think that gave him a legal precedent? Like isn’t owning weed and a gun a felony in and of itself?
Edit: currently depends which federal court circuit’s jurisdiction you fall under. Might get brought to the supreme court at some point? Either way there’s legal precedent that makes that iffy. Which is fair. Weed should be legal, and despite this asshole, I trust stoners more than habitual drinkers or the GOP and their constituents.
Either way the guy was obviously a fuckin’ issue, and was committing several other federal offenses lol.
In my jurisdiction, yes. Any drug offense combined with possessing a firearm is an automatic felony. Even if the drug offense by itself would have been a misdemeanor. It is a very bad idea, legally speaking.
Lol no he was just mad. And weed is legal in Cali. Guns are too but I’d be willing to be that one was street bought
Owning the gun is not a felony weed yes
That’s kinda cool seeing how apparently you guys do put your money where your mouth is 😄 I wish we talked about that kinda stuff more and not just about the bad. I feel like remembering that not every aspect of being American sucks might give people a better reason to resist too.
Americans are naturally anarchist, we just have a shitload of bootlicker propaganda shoved on us at all times and too many people buy it
I often find Americans abroad to be quite charming in how American they are. Certainly, there are some that are obnoxious (and even their friendliness can be obnoxiousness in a way), but it can be quite endearing; Americans (especially the ones you meet while travelling) are so outgoing, and they’re so keen to make connections with people. Like, is it cringe when an American says “oh my great great grandfather was Scottish”, as if makes any difference at all that they are 1/16 Scottish? Yeah, somewhat. But after a friend explained to me that she sees it as coming from a deep desire to connect with other people, I began to see it as quite sweet.
It’s part of why I grieve for what’s going on in America right now. “American-ness” is a messy, mixed concept, and it would be unreasonable to ignore how much of that concept is deeply problematic. However, I feel that there is goodness within that concept, and the people in power at the moment seem hell bent on destroying or undermining what goodness exists there.
How do Europeans react to pickpockets?
I caught a pickpocket in Madrid with his hand in my girlfriend’s purse. He was directly behind us on the escalator. We just kind of were like “hey not cool,” then had an awkward escalator ride. We were late for a flight, so didn’t really have time to do much anyway.
I have had stuff stolen in Paris. Mostly, you have no idea it happened until they’re long gone.
You caught a man with his hand in your girlfriend’s purse, and his punishment was a “hey, not cool” and 15 seconds of awkward escalator?
No fucking wonder that happens CONSTANTLY when an awkward 15 second escalator ride is the punishment for getting caught.
What do you suggest they should’ve done instead in that situation? Assault him and get arrested? Report him to the police or airport security and miss the flight while getting the bureaucratic run-around?
Cause a scene. Be obnoxious and in their face. You don’t have to throw a punch to be scary.
Sounds like your police protect criminals and not the victims if what you’re describing is true.
To be fair ours in the US mostly do this, too.
Nah, I suggest they should try aggressively shitting their pants, synchronized with their girlfriend.
Surely the sound + smell will attract the authority figure they so need, and the situation will resolve itself quickly. Much more effective than a stern look!
God what a bunch of pussies.
Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t average American scared to walk to church without a gun of there are 80 year old homeless people on the way?
Nah. There’s a subset sure but not really. I don’t carry anything and I feel no fear. I even lived in Detroit and walked around at night. It was fine.
Stand corrected, as you are quite wrong.
I haven’t even seen a gun in years. You’re out of touch with reality.
I’m an American and I see guns literally every day. Are you not counting cops, security guards, and soldiers?
I have no reason to come into contact with cops, security guards, or soldiers on a regular basis. I can only assume your “literally” is facetious as well because literally every day is absurd.
And in the context of replying to someone making claims against the “average American” carrying guns, I think it’s appropriate to omit people carrying for work, yes.
I’ve been in a situation like that. Street perfomance, many a people. Some guy bumped behind me. I somehow quickly noticed a lack of phone. I told my dad, soon as I realised. He went up to the guy, the guy was all like “eh, he dropped it” or whatever. Feels like they just be awkward
It usually isn’t worth the time to call the police and wait for them while trying to retain the person(s). If the stolen value is under 400 euros they can only get a fine.
So no one calls the police and no one beats the shit out of them? No wonder you have a problem with pickpockets. You want to be robbed as a society.
I have never been robbed. I have only seen it a couple of times in the metro, so it isn’t really a problem here.
Yeah when I was robbed in Paris, the police did nothing.
I think you destroyed him emotionally.
warn other people of their presence, publicly shame them
Has public shame worked so far?
Evidently not
Sounds like they just shrug it off like wusses. “Ope don’t get to own that anymore “
In 1992, I caught an eight year old pickpocketing my friend. We were 4 18yo males from Texas. So I am holding this kid a couple feet off the ground trying to decide what the hell to do with him. My friends didn’t really know what to do either. He was struggling pretty good, but not enough to get free. His mom came rushing over yelling something unintelligible, so I just threw him at her, and they took off running.
sidenote, the reading of a thread on twitter is hellish. Top to bottom be damned, it’s like 3 different UIs in one.
Especially if there’s a little addon from Tumblr at the end of something.
why isnt the reddit type formatting good enough?!glad people are finally noticing this aspect of 2a. maybe the conversation can eventually start to touch on things like how it works for unions, reproductive rights, preventing cop fuckery, resisting environmental exploration. long story short, how the perpetrators of systemic and corporeal violence almost exclusively only target the vulnerable and unarmed.
I think the biggest factor here is the immediate and tangible aspect of this type of theft.
Wage theft and systemic things are larger and conceptual until it hits, and more often than not because it’s so vague and not “just one person” it doesn’t evoke the same visceral response in a lot of people.
Not sure how we can start reframing to do so but getting on these conversations is a good idea for sure.
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Why is pickpocketing and related just like, not a thing in the US?
I call bullshit. This is the country where everybody says, don’t confront or they’ll shoot/stab you. I bet many other countries have more vigilantism. This is the country, where everybody has guns “to rise against tyranny” and lets a tyranny roam free. This is the country where school shootings are almost a daily event. Majority of these people won’t even confront people that litter.
We don’t have pickpocketing in America, we have robbery.
I had two incidents in my life where someone attempted to rob me. Like specifically requested I give them something. Both times ended with nothing, because they backed off when they realized I don’t have anything worth it.
Ah ha ! As a kid I was stunned by how violente the death of Bruce Wayne parents were. All this for jewelery? I get it now. That’s just cultural chock. Less pickpocketing more robbery.
We do have organized pickpockets in the US, just not as many and they are mostly concentrated in specific parts of the country where there are dense tourist areas. New Orleans and Las Vegas for example are both pretty well known for having pickpockets.
Why is pickpocketing and related just like, not a thing in the US?
I call bullshit. This is the country where everybody says, don’t confront or they’ll shoot/stab you.
Well, you might have your answer right there. Pickpockets risk getting shot or stabbed, so the risk/reward maths out poorly for them
Three American cities are in the top ten worldwide in fear of getting pickpocketed.
Source: https://matadornetwork.com/read/worst-us-cities-for-pickpockets/
Pickpocketing is happening in every major US city with numbers rising from year to year:
So US citizens thinking they’re superior when they arent.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/pickpocket-smartphones/585997/
https://havengear.com/blog/pickpocketing/
But in the end, I believe it’s the car centered cities that keep numbers relatively low. No puclic transport and less people at one place= less pickpockets.
Three American cities are in the top ten worldwide in fear of getting pickpocketed.
this is an opinion poll of tourists, not a statistic on crime data.
Pickpocketing is happening in every major US city with numbers rising from year to year: So US citizens thinking they’re superior when they arent.
Thank you for your screenshot of a study about “concern over pickpocketing”. Europe still proceeds to take more of the top 10 spots.
alright, so it’s one in east asia, one in turkey, five in europe, and three in the usa. the europe/usa ratio roughly matches the population ratio. the point stands that it’s still very comparable by population (which a top ten cities list is not suited to describing)
USA has more land mass by leagues, so… Europe is still kicking ass based on area and probably on population, too. Three big US cities almost certainly doesnpt equal up to many Euro cities…
Your attempts to twist this narrative are hilarious, but it’s also so, so sad…
Ok but the US points in the pickpocket column are pretty low compared to Europe’s. Other forms of stealing are plenty common in America, it’s just that we’re a lot more likely to get shown a gun and asked to empty our pockets ourselves than have the thief covertly do it for us.
That 0.0 stat is really helping your argument
In the unlisted cities, pickpockets will leave cash, weed, and Kinder Surprises in your pockets.
There’s ways to mug and rob tourists in cars. You flag them down like you’re asking for help (I was taught to not stop as a teenager because of how common this was), or you cause a minor fender bender in a beater although that’s more commonly an insurance scam method. Growing up, rental cars in Florida had special “rental” plates, until the government changed the law to make rental cars have the same plates because criminals had been using them to target tourists (cops did too, and they weren’t that thrilled by the change).
TLDR: Orlando is one of the worst car dependent hell holes and it still made the list because Florida Man can be clever when it comes to stealing from tourists.
less people at one place= less pickpockets.
Checks out. Las Vegas, Orlando, and NYC are all huge tourist destinations. That’s where you’ll find the most pickpockets.
Every last thing on that list is a major tourist destination.
Maybe we’re looking at this wrong. Maybe it’s not that the US is less likely to be pickpocketed, just for size you’re less likely to be in a pickpocketable area.
The other part of the comment was that Americans drive everywhere, thus there are less opportunities to pickpocket. Tourists walk around a lot.
Also Vegas doesnt surprise me in the least. It’s utterly unwalkable except in the hospitality areas where a lot of people are drunk and headed to or from casinos.
If I were to choose one place in the world to be a pickpocket, Vegas would be very high on the list. It’s a perfect combination.
See, they think that pickpocketing isn’t an issue in the US because they have far more pressing issues.
Over here we talk about pickpocketing, because it’s pretty much the worst crime anyone ever encounters in their real life. You probably wouldn’t care much about that if there’s multiple school shootings a day and people can just stage insurrections and nobody cares.
Ask the women about that take
Crime perception is derived mostly via news reports. Most people are affected by crime maybe 1-2 times in their lives (of course, this number differs greatly with some people being affected by crime all the time, but the median is very low).
That means, your perception what kinds of crimes are how prevalent is mostly shaped by media.
Media has a very limited bandwidth, so of course only the most sensationalist kinds of crimes are reported on. If there’s a school shooting almost every day with 31000 victims in total per year, the likelihood of something as petty as pickpocketing making the news is very low.
Density and cultural norms in general are definitely a factor.
If I was out and about in my normal area where I live in the US and someone got close enough to pick my pocket I’d be on high alert because they are way inside the normal personal space bubble here.
I must not have made that comment clear. That is what americans often have told me when talking about vigilantism. “Don’t resist because they might be armed.”
Thank you for clarifying my foreign friend! “Don’t resist because they might be armed” cuts both criminal and civilian.
In America, having a gun is part of the cat and mouse! I am one of two in my x100+extended family to ever get mugged, and implying a gun by asking “is the $13 in my wallet worth the lead” made me the only mugging 'winner".
Yeah, in the instance crime happens, they might have a gun, but lucid criminals understand you might have one as well.
And the mentally unstable is taken really good care of over there I hear.
I have never even met anyone who has gotten mugged or pickpocketed. Not family, not friends, not even my students. Have some been assaulted in some way, yes.
Here is a discussion from the other day about Danes leaving their stuff in public, because anything rarely happens. Americans were also shocked that babies are left outside to sleep in the fresh air, in that same thread. https://lemmy.world/post/32576945
Maybe our lived experiences are anecdotal, different. Your stance seems very generalized, though, if you don’t mind me saying so.
The type of shit the average Joe/Jill deals with depends on their location, situation, and reaction cannot be wrapped up so simply. Mass shootings and politics are just more issues you’re lumping together in a way I feel just isn’t so beautifully packaged as you wrapped it up to be.
Our society is fucked. Don’t get me wrong. But I’m smart/dumb enough not to call you on it outright while I still understand that everything you encompassed here is far more nuanced than a simple, regurgitated hot take.
Many of the people that have helped me escape muggings are the same people our society would accuse of mugging me. 100% of the time they were more helpful than law enforcement.
I think that speaks more to the topic at hand than your comment. We only have each other, sometimes just ourselves, and we cannot look to those that are suppose to uphold the law so we take care of ourselves to a passionate degree and learn fast that it’s better to ask forgiveness than it is permission. The court system is a joke, too. So again. Too many topics, ideals, and talking points to wrap up in a neat little package.
If it was as simple as all of that, why not run for office with this as your platform? Do the work. We all know those actually in office aren’t doing it, so prove them wrong. Otherwise, and I’m sorry, but I take what you say just as seriously as the pontificating drunks I served all night.
I’ve never been pickpocketed here. It really is in my experience such an elsewhere and old timey crime that I’d be shocked to see it here outside of somewhere like times square.
It’s a skilled crime with high risk of physical violence that thrives when people with enough money to rob are walking with enough frequency as to make it worth robbing folks. Car culture probably plays more of a role than risk of being beaten up, but the potential violence of victims may contribute to would be pickpockets just being muggers.
Thievery here is more con artists, threatening crime, and burglary. It’s a smash and grab on your car, a mugging (though that’s also not super common since the cities were cleaned up), or a armed robbery of a store rather than a pickpocket
I’ve confronted some litterbugs in the past. Sometimes they get indignant and try to talk shit, but since I usually start my picking up the trash and then saying something, the usual responses are, I didn’t mean to do that, or, I was going to get that. To which I usually just say, yeah, sure you were buddy, and walk away. One time it was pretty sketch, big ass dude got real aggro, but fuck him, don’t litter.
What reaction were the French pickpockets expecting? Ope, lemme get that for ya?
I think it’s harder to die from poor in France.
Oh. That makes sense
Certainly not assault. Most (french) people catching a thief inside their pocket have a bad enough day to not risk getting injured while winning a prison ticket.
I live in Canada, there’s surprisingly little pickpocketing here too, and we don’t have the same gun/weapon laws.
Like the Americans, we’ll straight up beat you to a pulp if you try some shit, and we’re very sorry about that… You motherfucker.
If you want to steal shit, at least be moral about it and go to a walmart or something. I’m sorry but I’m not even going to pretend to be sorry about a pickpocket targeting normal people getting his (or her) ass beaten.
Though, on that note, is it harder or riskier to shoplift in Europe? Maybe that’s why we have fewer pickpockets because stores are much easier and safer targets. Unless you get a particularly enthusiastic mall cop after you, even if you get caught, it’ll probably be a fairly polite interaction involving more disappointment than rage, all the way from capture to sentencing, at least in Canada.
Plus these days the odds of getting cash is low and the expensive device everyone carries has gps tracking built in, so the reward might be too low for the risk.
If you see someone shoplifting, no you didn’t.
Edit: to clarify, I agree with you, and that’s part of the intention of leaving this quip here
This is my viewpoint too.
If I’m a witness to shoplifting, I’m not a witness to shoplifting.
Unless you’re a kleptomaniac, you’re probably not stealing because you want to. You’re stealing because you have to.
Corporations have insurance, and they’re not people; so if they lose some money in the transaction, I am unbothered.
The majority of shoplifting is organized effort to sell shit online or to fund a drug habit. Why because only a drug addict will spend more hours stealing than you do working and he will by himself steal more than 40 casual thieves because he’s motivated
Seems pessimistic.
What about the people who can’t afford to live and need to steal to eat? Those downtrodden because some rich CEO asshole decided to try to replace them with AI, and they lost everything being unemployed and having the price of everything shoot through the roof for no goddamned reason?
What about those people?
I’m not saying that there aren’t people who steal to fund their addiction, but that’s not the only motivator.
We’re all humans.
I’m sorry but I’m not even going to pretend to be sorry about a pickpocket targeting normal people getting his (or her) ass beaten.
What about American tourists in a foreign nation that has been historically violently repressed via the American Military and economic shock treatment by American institutions? Those American tourists enabled their government and businesses to do that, via their votes and their labor for said businesses. In this respect they are not just “regular people” in a place like Mexico, Chile, Iran, Iraq, and so on.
You know rich people have rigged our gov for ages. Those wars we fought were highly unpopular and nobody wanted them. Rich people made lots of money as a result. Believe it or not, “no more stupid wars” was part of Trump’s campaign platform. It’s about the only part that dems liked too. You can’t run for office here without being super rich unless it’s local or an anomaly.
Bernie Sanders, David Hogg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Jasmine Crockett.
Stop this defeatist attitude bullshit. The real problem is people don’t vote in the fucking primaries.
Zohran Mamdani is an example of what happens when people turn out for the primary.
Upvote for being right.
I won’t try to argue about the morality of it, though I can’t agree that pickpocketing any random American does anything to fight the military industry or their imperialism, though I will grant that culpability for it is complex. But when you play with fire, you should expect to get burned occasionally.
This is bullshit logic. In the last 40 years the government has served the interests of the few and half the time is literally elected by the minority that would have lost the election in most democracies.
Also actions are a moral reflection on you alone not the victims
This is definitely a win for the Americans, beating the shit out of pickpockets is awesome.
There’s no pickpocketing in the US because thieves will shoot you before taking your wallet. At that point it’s murder with a motive
No, it is because pickpocketing can be argued as being an assault in the US. If you catch someone pickpocketing you it is legal to defend yourself and your property.
That is entirely dependent on the state you live in, and not all states have the same kind of interpretation.
Definitely. My city has a huge yearly street festival and the police stand on the roofs of buildings to watch for pickpockets. Each year we will see a few getting caught by the “victims”, most of the time there will be four or five people beating on the thief by the time the police get there. All the police do is haul the pickpocket away. So it seems like a legal “gray area” where I am from.
…and that’s why they start with maximum violence out of the bat. If for you as a criminal the outcome is the same, why risk it and start with random pickpocket, when you will be tried as if you assaulted a person, start with an assault, safer for you, same risk.
I am flabbergasted you think that a petty assault charge for pickpocketing is even in the same building as pre meditated murder with a lethal weapon.
The us is bad sure, but not the only nation with a similar system (I know here someone will take a swing at a pickpocketer) and yet the murder rate is not higher then average in the world.
I was thinking the same thing. Try and pickpocket someone and get caught/punched and the thief might get a few months in jail. Going straight to assault/murder over a wallet is straight up crackhead mentality.
That’s deep meth territory. Most around here doing crime to feed a habit most certainly stick to methods of theft that don’t come with over 10 year sentences. Its been an increasing issue here the last decade but assaults have actually gone down in the same time period. Drugs smuggled up from the nation south of us has created more addicts but that does not make them murderers.
Are you kidding me? US with has the worst rate of intentional homicide per capita in all the developed world by far. It has alsmost the same level as Russia, country actively waging a war with a neighbor, it’s on par with Yemen for fucks sake. And that’s just intentional, it doesn’t even takes into account self-defense killing, negligent homicide, or assault with no intention to murder.
Yes, but I am not American. That was why I started with us bad.
I was thinking it was because, in many places people are carrying in public, and if you steal from the wrong person, you’re dead.
Yeah that’s why crime has plummeted /s
I mean, its not like thoae fascist pigs will do anything to help. Shoot first ask later is the 'Murican way.
Four ruffians break into my house. “What the devil?” As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he’s dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it’s smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, “Tally ho lads” the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion. He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. Just as the founding fathers intended.
Well, I imagine this culture change happened a long time ago, and it never came back because of… well the implication.
Change happened alright. The murder rate in my city rose 20% after the outgoing republican governor permitted conceal and carry by executive order on his way out the door after losing reelection (2007)
I mean like… 100 years ago
There is no pickpocket in america, people rather smash car windows.
