Criminals Have As Many Rights As You
If law-breakers have the same legal rights as the law-abiding, then it’s just as much the case that law-breakers are as responsible for the outcome of their actions as anyone else.
There have been a lot of happenings lately in the world of personal safety and America’s growing internal instability.
Let’s begin in Tennessee, where a totally avoidable tragedy occurred:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – A self-defense claim is under investigation after a pregnant woman was shot in a Walgreens parking lot, forcing doctors to perform an emergency cesarean section and deliver her premature baby.
According to Metro police, the shooting happened at around 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Walgreens in the 2500 block of Gallatin Avenue in East Nashville.
Police said a Walgreens employee was notified by another employee that two women were stealing items from the store. The employee told police he saw the women putting items into a store cart and into a large over-the-shoulder bag. The employee said he began recording the women with his cell phone and followed them as they left the store without paying for the items.
According to investigators, the employee said as the women began putting items into the trunk of their car, he made his way to the back of the car. That’s when one of the women reportedly pulled a can of mace and began spraying at him.
The employee then pulled his semi-automatic pistol and began shooting, saying he was afraid and did not know if either of the women were armed. The women then fled in their car while the employee went back into the store and called 911, according to police.
Let me begin by addressing a point a number of commenters on social media brought up - pepper spray isn’t a deadly weapon and, therefore, doesn’t warrant a deadly response. In general, that’s true. Shooting someone in response to being pepper-sprayed is a wildly disproportionate response. No argument there.
The problem is that the pepper spray was used during the commission of a crime. The line between assault and self-defense is blurry, as I’ve explained previously. I’ve yet to see anything contradicting the shoplifting allegation, meaning her actions cannot be regarded as self-defense, either. There are a significant number of commenters peddling the narrative claiming she was shot for shoplifting, but that’s not true - she was shot in response to an attack. Whether that attack warranted a lethal response is an open question and will be at the heart of any decision to bring charges against the Walgreens employee.
In my view, the fatal error occurred when the employee followed the shoplifters to the parking lot. I spoke in the past of the importance of safety in transitional spaces; in this context, leaving the store not only made him physically vulnerable, it also made him legally vulnerable. Chasing after a criminal is not legally-protected activity and criminals have the same legal rights as you. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to accept it, otherwise, you’re asking for trouble, just like this Walgreens employee.
We still don’t have enough details to cast a definitive judgment, but again, the objective is to avoid situations where you need to defend yourself. Filming them from inside the store typically suffices in terms of gaining evidence. Unless he actually planned on seizing the stolen goods from the thieves - inadvisable, since that’d involve the use of force - there wasn’t much upside to following them outside, except maybe to identify the vehicles they were driving. Even then, maintaining a safe distance is an absolute must. Again, more details are needed before making any definitive judgments on this case, but it’s never too early to reiterate general principles of ensuring personal safety so as to not end up in a self-defense scenario.
What I want to talk about next goes back to what people have said about how shooting someone isn’t a justifiable response to shoplifting. Once more, she wasn’t shot for shoplifting, she was shot because she attacked someone. Even if you still believe deadly force constitutes a disproportionate response to being pepper-sprayed, if you want to have an opinion on the case, you need to have a factual understanding of it and to claim she was shot for shoplifting isn’t just hyperbolic, it’s simply isn’t true.
But to talk about the case with respect to what the shoplifter did or didn’t deserve is childish: when you commit crime or any act of violence, you don’t get to dictate the outcome! Saying something like “shoplifting doesn’t warrant a death sentence” is the same as saying “I shouldn’t get hit when I run out into traffic.” There’s no “ifs” nor “buts” when it comes to irresponsible, unlawful behavior. None. I’ve made the point of advising my readers that using violence in a lawful manner are always messy and unpredictable, so it goes just as far to say the same for those who behave unlawfully. Nobody’s entitled to anyone else’s property, for any reason. Nor do you get to insist upon being treated a certain way.
If law-breakers have the same legal rights as the law-abiding, then it’s just as much the case that law-breakers are as responsible for the outcome of their actions as anyone else. It says a lot that so many people are more disturbed that a Walgreens employee chose to follow, confront, and shoot shoplifters than they are by the fact a shoplifting occurred and that she evidently thought she could get away with it, consequently triggering a violent outcome. Far too many are more judgmental about the employee’s actions while having nothing to say about that of the shoplifters, amounting to a tacit defense of criminality. One way you know we live under anarcho-tyranny is when criminals aren’t ever expected to check their behavior, but the rest of us are.
On a final point is there’s a vocal segment of the population that thinks property belonging to a corporation like Walgreens isn’t really property or that your employer’s property isn’t worth risking your life over. Again, nobody’s entitled to steal. The “just property” crowd need to understand that stolen goods aren’t always recovered nor recoverable. There exists a limited window of opportunity to stop a theft from occurring or to get the stolen items back. This isn’t to say citizens should risk life and limb to do so, but it is to say that if you’re not going to stop theft when it happens, there’s no stopping it at all. It also needs to be understood that there’s no use in having one set of rules for one group and another set of rules for another. If someone can just walk off with merchandise at Walgreens, why can’t you and I?
Oh, that’s right: we know better and the Regimes holds us to a higher standard. It’s what someone once referred to as “The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations.” Except there’s nothing “soft” about it and there’s certainly nothing innocent about it. It not only enables and abets disorder, but it gradually destabilizes society. You can’t tell because it happens so slowly, but now we’re beginning to see what happens when certain people are allowed to do whatever they want in public while others aren’t, and when the actions of criminals are judged less harshly than of those who are willing to partake in both the benefits and continuity of civilization.
It should really bother us as a collective that we’ve been forced to spectate as rampant lawlessness happens right in front of us and it’s our actions that’ll be scrutinized most, not that of the criminals. Look at this incident which took place a few days ago at a Walgreens in La Puente, California, a city located in the Los Angeles area:
https://twitter.com/LaPuente626sgv/status/1647476179740536832
This is likely similar to what happened at the Nashville Walgreens. Thankfully, this incident ended without bloodshed and the employee you can see filming the thieves acted prudently. But it sure is infuriating watching them get away, even if some sort of punishment awaits them at the end of the road. Delayed justice isn’t always justice.
I think I’ve said enough on that. I may have more to say about this case as the story unfolds. For now, I just hope everyone views this story as a cautionary tale, a sobering reminder that the Regime considers it our duty to be victimized by crime and that our own actions will always be judged more harshly than that of any criminal. The only practical advice I can give here is the same advice I’ve always given: do only what the law says you can do, nothing more, don’t give into emotion, and never put yourself in a position where you need to justify your actions to the authorities.
In a change of plans, what was supposed to be one long post will be broken up into multiple posts. After weeks of struggling against writer’s block, I suddenly have a lot to say! I guess you eventually do snap out of your slumps.
Max Remington is a defense, military, and foreign policy writer. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentLoyalist.
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As a kid I was a baseball nut. I read a book by retired baseball umpire Ron Luciano. When he didn’t know the rule in an unusual situation, his rule of thumb was to rule against the team that caused the situation. In other words, if your second baseman dropped a catch or your runner missed a base, you lost the benefit of the doubt.
In these ambiguous cases, the right gives the law-abiding the benefit of the doubt, whereas the left and increasingly the justice system gives the criminal the benefit of the doubt.
Why? 1. Criminals are often minorities of some sort. 2. The justice system seems to indulge its usual suspects, such as career criminals, but goes after civilians who come into its grip. 3. Leftists are often over educated white collar types who lack basic sympathy for working men who clumsily intervene against crime.
I also think that the left has lost any respect for property rights. Property is seen as something arbitrary that happens to come into your possession for a while and the state may reassign at will. So there is no sympathy for someone whose property rights come under attack, since those rights are not meaningful in the first place.