As we say in the USA:
"The police don't protect us, we protect us"
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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What reaction were the French pickpockets expecting? Ope, lemme get that for ya?
Proud to be an American 🇺🇸🦅🫡
If anyone deserves a good beating it's pickpockets.
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.
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This is definitely a win for the Americans, beating the shit out of pickpockets is awesome.
Psycho
Won't somebody think of the criminals? 🥺
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So you're saying that americans have a magical property that makes them confront pickpocketers unlike everyone else who simply allows it to happen because they apparently don't care about keeping their expensive stuff? Believable
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.
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Omg, this turned out to be a thread with plenty explanations to USians that societies have laws, police, judges...
You can blame the orange guy all you want, but your culture is completely derailed. Murder (under whatever "reasons") can't be a national sport.
Weapon manufacturers really did a good job in the land of the free..
I mean obviously the gun laws are insane but the act of collectively beating the shit out of pickpockets has my respect.
Violent retribution as a core principle might contribute to your completely insane murder rates.
Man, people should have a right to defend their shit. The idea that someone should be allowed to take your things in front of you and you should be charged if you beat them up is pretty unhinged tbh
I fully disagree and enjoy living in a society free of such barbaric tendencies.
Make your people happy and maybe they'll stop stealing your shit.
Where do you live? I want your shit
Not rhetorical, I personally want your shit
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There are people who steal no matter how wealthy or comfortable they are. Theft is not stopped by making people happy. Reduced significantly, yes. But absolutely not stopped. Wage theft is the largest form of theft in the world, done exclusively by the better off and rich. Never forget that
(And yes, I'm saying that people should have the right to beat up their employers to get back their stolen money)
Man, it's just shit. Life should be of higher value than an object, even if it's a really cool object or useful. You beating someone for taking something is a bigger problem then things being taken. You can't commit a crime because someone else also committed a crime first. Get it?
Quite simply, that should be the thief's decision to make. It's their risk to undertake, it was their decision to make that choice to rob and steal.
You can't commit a crime because someone else also committed a crime first. Get it?
Legality is not morality.
What about a pickpocket that stole a stupid iPhone from a rich teen who would get a new one the very next day? And, in some less frequent cases, the pickpocket may have had actual needs like buying medicine..
That's the reason we have a judicial system. Not even police are supposed to do harm, only prevent harm and bring into justice system.
I know the system has many flaws. That's beyond the point. Those who prefer to go vigilante are calling for making it worse. Specially if we take into account the effects of inequality on a hands-on self-service judicial approach...
But the judicial system famously doesn’t differentiate between people doing what they need to for good reasons and those doing it for bad reasons…
Are you actually defending thieves?
Why can’t the pickpocket go get a job and buy his own damn iPhone. My stuff is mine, you try to take it and I’ll hit you. This is like basic human behavior.
How's the pickpocket to know the person in question's situation? That's one of the top justifications scammers in india use as to why they pretend what they do is reasonable. But reality is they don't know, and they don't care. They'll steal from anyone.
And, in some less frequent cases, the pickpocket may have had actual needs like buying medicine…
Likewise, a pickpocketing victim may also need to buy medicine.
The saddest/funniest thing to me about this whole bit is how every. single. US. person defending their right to righteously beat the shit out of someone for picking their pocket never, ever, even considers the idea that they might lose.
It's just like gun owners in general. They all think they're a perfect shot and the other guy must be like a Storm Trooper in Star Wars and can't hit the broad side of a barn.
Everyone thinks they're the hero and that they don't need cops and laws until they're the one bleeding out in an alleyway on the verge of death because they were stupid enough to "fight back."
US Americans are completely fucking unhinged and live in a fantasy land where somehow every single one of them is the biggest and strongest with the biggest dick and will always win because their cause is righteous. What a crock of shit.
Willingness to stand up for oneself is not necessarily the same as one overestimating their ability to fight.
I was bullied regularly as a kid. I was no match at all for most of the bullies, they easily had strength, size, numbers, and fighting experience over me, but since the schools wouldn't or couldn't do a damn thing to protect me, especially when the bullies followed me well away from school grounds, the only choices I had were to either endure it, or to try to change the situation by standing up for myself. Even if I got my ass beat even worse just for standing up for myself, at the very least it made it clear to them that I was no longer guaranteed to be a frictionless target and that sometimes changes things for the better.
It's not about winning. It's about putting up the fight, because the potential outcomes of not fighting back aren't always much better than standing up for oneself.
That said, I personally wouldn't want to put a foreign trip in jeopardy by assaulting anyone if it wasn't an actual self defense situation, much like back at home. I'm just responding to this idea that willingness to fight is not the same thing as being overly confident that one will come out on top.
and that sometimes changes things for the better.
And a lot of times it changes it for the worse, too. What even is this argument?
I don't think you understand what it's like to be constantly bullied and constantly on guard. At some point there is no concept of "worse". At some point there is only the sense of "literally anything in the world except this."
How do Europeans react to pickpockets?
warn other people of their presence, publicly shame them
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.
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