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Americans kinda don't like pickpocketing rule
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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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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.
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.
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.
I didn't say I want to assault anybody. But if someone tries to take my wallet, would I push them off and move away swiftly? Yes absolutely.
I guess to me, that seems rather defensive. I don't want to engage any more than I have to to extricate myself from the situation