What are we supposed to use man? Harsh language?

Always keep something around. For close encounters.

Flame-units only.

Give them the money and don't risk your life for a minimum wage job?

Sorry, is that not a reasonable mindset in the corporate feudal society?

That guy probably owns the store. He's also Vietnamese. First generation Vietnamese generally aren't afraid of shit.

wtf_japan: fair points, but:

*Store owners can & should get insurance for this kind of thing. Granted, people on the edge of poverty often can't afford a semi-luxury like theft insurance.

*More importantly, the rest of society shouldn't regard this situation as admirable or a good thing. If the shop owner had to defend his store with a crowbar, we should either be marveling at his stupidity (for not getting insurance) or figuring out how to help the poor. (if he was too poor to afford insurance) What we should *not* be doing is applauding the poor man for standing his ground, or defending his own, or whatever idiot phrase conservatives have latched onto.

You don't have to be poor, stupid, or even uninsured to do what he did. You just have to be from a place that doesn't allow you to possess what you can't personally defend.

There is an irony, however, in the fact that the people who would praise his bravery seem to want to turn America into the same kind of Darwinistic nightmare that he was probably trying to escape.

SolRo, are you quoting from that Special Edition laserdisc, or what?

SolRo's right, the gun's intent here is to threaten, not to shoot. Chances are it wasn't even loaded. I've been held up a few times by people brandishing pistols and the one time I gave said ok 70 bucks in the register was at knifepoint, because that's the mark of a desperate psychopath, not someone who can afford a gun, which he could sell for more than what's in the drawer.

So I called my boss for the "override" number to open the register and the cops were there in like two minutes while I went around getting the cigarillos and brillo pads and shit he wanted too. It was pretty rad.

(my boss who wasn't my boss, just my co-worker who was drinking at the bar next door. We had this down pretty well. Best part's the fact that the drawer springs had broken like a week ago so we just had to ring everything up and manually open the fucking thing in the first place).