PA-PLAYA

It's not that it's legal; its that the criminal justice and legal system have their marching orders for other groups to triage and selectively prosecute and incarcerate, given that we have very finite resources in terms of court system, time , personnel and spaces in prisons. The latter of course, since they're full of non-violent drug and related offenders costing the taxpayers billions a year and lining the pockets of the CEOs of the for profit prisons.

Also, not to apologize for the despicable acts on any level, but if people wouldn't buy fenced/hot goods, these things would not happen. It's odd that upthread the entirety of the blame is on the thieves, not a single call out of the people taking advantage of the theft and too gutless to rob the store outright themselves. Honestly ,they're more guilty IMO.

    If only these automakers would just stop making cars that are so damned easy to steal! It's their fault, I tell ya! They keep putting those catalytic converters on the lowest shelf where they're most easily accessible! This is tantamount to entrapment! 🙄

      PA-PLAYA

      I heard that suggestion from a California congresswoman a few weeks back. She said Toyota made it way to easy to steal catalytic converters.

        Par4QC

        From the photos in the article, they sure look like "thugs" as PA-Playa labeled them upthread. (That is certainly a charged word that should not be loosely thrown around nowadays)

        But more to the point , since the "comedians" above are making light of the matter with their ridiculous strawmen, if people wouldn't buy stolen goods, people wouldn't steal stuff for resale (for ORC purposes, anyways). Focusing on stopping the thefts won't stop the problem; which was my point above that nobody understood because it gets in the way of their "thug petty shoplifter" narrative and mental preconceived images.

        If you want to stop this problem you have to stop it BOTH on the retail side and on the black market re-sale of the hot goods side. Good luck with the current approach of just the former.