[chucklenorris]

Wtf is going on in US? Are poor people that desperate that they consider getting shot for groceries? Especially considering how insane policing in US looks like. I live in a poor country and this is not a problem, not at this rate anyways. There are plenty of self serve stores and there's a big push for self checkout too although people hate it.

[maxerickson]

Large retailers don't have armed security. At least, not mostly. Things are still at the point where they are more worried about liability than the stuff getting stolen.

The $500 million is less than 1% of their cost of goods. It's an easy place to look for improvements, but it isn't really a threat to their business.

I definitely think things have gotten worse. I've directly noticed a couple of thefts at my local Walmart in the last couple of years and hadn't seen any in previous years. In one case I saw a person just push their cart through a self checkout area. In the other, the self checkout I walked up to had an incomplete transaction sitting there.

[mcphage]

Self-checkout seems to remove some of the human connection in shopping—there isn't even a face to the corporation anymore.

[fatnoah]

> Are poor people that desperate that they consider getting shot for groceries?

The liability and reputational cost of a store security guard injuring a shoplifter, or even getting injured themselves is so high that they might not even be allowed to physically intervene. Naturally, knowledge of this spreads.