Woman pulls gun when denied shoe exchange because of missing receipt

[jpak]

http://www.kwch.com/news/crimewatch/kwch-man-pulls-gun-when-denied-shoe-exchange-because-of-missing-receipt-20110824,0,2203642.story

In this case the customer isn't always right; especially when she pulls a gun on the owner of a store during a dispute over an item.

<snip>

A customer who was angry about being denied an exchange of shoes walked out of the store and returned minutes later with a gun, police said.

The woman held the store owner at gunpoint and demanded he exchange the shoes. He complied and she walked out the door, leaving the old pair behind.

The owner of the store told Eyewitness News the woman wanted to return a pair of worn tennis shoes she had bought her son about two months earlier. She didn't have a receipt.

<more>

more evidence that more guns are the answer

yup

[MADem]

1. Police were able to track down the woman about a block from the store. She was booked for robbery.

Hopefully, it was ARMED robbery.

Send her up the river for a nice long time. That's just bullshit.

[WAFS]

3. Not just armed robbery...

but perhaps for kidnapping/unlawful detention, brandishing a weapon, and any other charge they can come up with. She should spend a long, long time in prison. At least she'll have her shoes provided for her.

[MADem]

9. +1 nt

[iverglas]

2. an armed society is a polite society!

He has now learned the most important lesson in retail manners: the customer is always right.

[Cirque du So-What]

4. A lesson, if unlearned, can merit capital punishment, dispensed swiftly

How fortunate we are as a society to have the means close at hand for dealing with the slightest frustration in a lethal manner. Thank GAWD the gun industry was there to fulfill our desires! Can't qualify to purchase one legally? Fret not! They make so many that the spillover into the black market assures satisfaction!

[iverglas]

5. I hope I didn't mislead you

by not adding a "sarcasm" thingy.

;)

[Cirque du So-What]

8. Same here

I recognized it as such and replied in kind. I don't like to use the 'sarcasm' thingie unless I think it's so subtle that some may not get it.

[Abin Sur]

18. God, I love Heinlein...

Might be time to re-read his entire oeuvre. I like to do that every few years.

Maybe after I finish the "Repairman Jack" series by F. Paul Wilson...

[iverglas]

20. I'd go with Harlan Ellison, myself

He throws trash back in the car windows of litterers. I turn my garden hose on them.

http://harlanellison.com/review/edge.htm

INSTALLMENT 9: April 25, 1981 (Future Life #23, August 1981)

Synopsis
Ellison verbally braces for the expected rash of kooky letters his previous column would inspire, and mentions he has already been receiving a flood of “sick” letters in response to his anti-gun screed inspired by the assassination of John Lennon, ...

Comment
Ellison theorizes that the rise of lunatic violence and pro-gun fanaticism is not a separate phenomenon from that of religious fundamentalism. David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz had been involved with cults and the Jesus Movement; Charles Manson had been raised deeply and rigidly religious; John Hinckley was a longtime reader of science fiction and adventure fantasy. He believes all of this is linked to the rise of knife-kill splatter flicks and white supremacist military training camps. One of the letters that responded to his gun control column arrived on embossed Nazi swastika stationery from a man in the U.S. Navy, at the Groton, Connecticut submarine base. “I hope he was trying to be funny,” Ellison remarks, because if he received another letter like that, he’d forward it to the man’s base commander, “who may have been in WWII and who may remember what that crippling cross stands for.”

INSTALLMENT 44: September 20, 1982

Synopsis
A serious political plea for activism and contributions in support of California Proposition 15, the Handgun Violence Prevention Act.

Comment
Ellison reprints his Heavy Metal piece in support of gun control, written just after the killing of John Lennon, which “brought more mail to the magazine than anything they had ever published,” including “a vomitous spewing of madness and violence from members of the Klan, from neo-Nazis, from babies with popguns whose verbal insanity was more shocking than the essay….” Such reaction turned many other readers away from the gun lobby, and he hoped this reprinting would do the same. Apparently it did not; the Interim Memo to Installment 48, which also deals with gun control, reports that the measure failed.

INSTALLMENT 48: October 25, 1982

Synopsis
Ellison mounts one last call for gun control and Proposition 15 before the election. He reminds readers that criminals are not really the point; most gun-related injuries and fatalities involve accidents and flareups among decent, law-abiding citizens. Most criminals get their guns from the homes of decent, law-abiding citizens. And a lot of non-California gun companies are pouring money into the state not because they love the Constitution.

Never anybody's fool, our Harlan Ellison.

Oh look, Democrats like him:

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1338492
"Now this is a real liberal! The great writer, Harlan Ellison"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=265x4752
Doesn't he sound just like somebody you know? When Phil Ochs hanged himself, a year after I'd missed my chance there, I should have set my cap for Harlan ...

Recommendations:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=265x4752

You could substitute Heinlein for Rand in that famous quote about Orcs. Pretty exciting when one was 13 and didn't see through it. Then one put away the childish propaganda.

If you stop re-reading the stuff, you might be able to move on.

[Abin Sur]

22. I've never particularly liked Ellison

Some of my favorite science fiction authors of whom I have read most of their works include of Asimov (his sf, anyway), Poul Anderson, Stephen Baxter, Ben Bova, Lois McMaster Bujold, Arthur C. Clarke, David Drake, Philip Jose Farmer, Alan Dean Foster, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, S. M. Stirling, and Harry Turtledove. That's just off the top of my head (I'm sure I've forgotten some), and it doesn't include fantasy, horror, or those authors of which I've only read a few books.

Does that count as "moving on"?

[Ian David]

6. This is why every shoe store clerk needs to be armed.

:sarcasm:

[GreenStormCloud]

7. It is doubtful that the woman had a CCW and also doubtful that she owned the gun legally.

Stupid criminals doing stupid criminal stuff is no reason to take my guns away.

[Hoyt]

11. Maybe she got it at a gun show or through a private sale.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

13. Maybe she smmugled it in from Mexico or Canada

My conjecture is no less valid than yours.

[ileus]

14. Maybe it was hand built from internet plans.

[Spoonman]

16. Or through a private sale at a gun show

Some people never learn

[iverglas]

12. but y'know what's not doubtful?

SHE HAD A GUN.

This seems to be the salient fact here.

[GreenStormCloud]

23. That is no reason to take my guns away from me. N/T

[MyrnaLoy]

25. wanna back

that up?

[ileus]

10. sounds like more evidence drugs aren't the answer.

[Remmah2]

15. A prime example of extreme social decay.

All the more reason for my family to own firearms and know how they work.

[iverglas]

21. all the more reason for her to have that gun

She might well have been mugged on her way down the street with the new tennis shoes.

[ZombieHorde]

17. Seems like she has a mental health issue.

She wasn't demanding money, she was demanding a shoe exchange. Doesn't that seem a bit off?

I know we love to lock people up in cages here in the US, and we do it more than anyone, but I am not so sure that is always the best course of action. A mental health institution may be a better match for her.

[rrneck]

19. It kinda bums me out

that it took seventeen posts for someone to suggest helping somebody with mental health problems.

[SteveM]

24. Yeah, you'd think the compassionate controller crowd would be on this.