Blaming Wal-Mart

After that poor man was trampled to death at a Long Island Wal-Mart, there are lots of people out there trying to blame Wal-Mart, and maybe they share in some of the blame, but clearly the lion share of the blame lies somewhere else.

I'm not talking about legal liability, I don't know how all of that works out, but just from the perspective of a regular guy, there's plenty of blame to go around.

I think that Wal-Mart's biggest contribution to this tragedy is in hyping up the Black Friday deals, but, or course, they are not alone in this, virtually every store out there gets into that. They also kept everyone outside where a mob mentality had the chance to form. Wal-Mart's in this area, most of them anyway, are open 24 hours a day, and so people are able to come into the store and line up near the items that are of interest to them. It can still be kinda scary if you're in the store, but it would generally avoid this kind of thing.

The largest part of the blame in all of this has to go to the mob. Those people that were so worked up in their selfish frenzy to get the things that they wanted, that they were willing to push and shove their way into the store, no matter what, or who, they had to step on in order to get in there.

Now we also have some morons crying that this employee didn't have any crowd control training or experience. Two things on that, one, duh! Of course he didn't have any crowd control training, he was a part time Wal-Mart employee, not a cop or some such person as that. And secondly, what kind of moron thinks that crowd control training would have helped? This was a mob, not a crowd. They actually broke down the doors of the store, so anyone there, regardless of training, would have been trampled by this mob.

Of course, if the individual people had some sense of respect and care for people other than themselves, and the things that they wanted to get for themselves, they would not have allowed themselves to turn into a mob, and kill a man who was just trying to make enough money to get by.

I will say, just for the record, not that I've heard anyone blame him, but just to make sure it's clear, the victim here does not bear any of the blame for this, he was just trying to do his job, doing what he was told to do, and the mob killed him for his trouble. I feel terrible for him, and for his family, and while I'm not sure how much Wal-Mart is responsible for this, I can understand why the family has sued Wal-Mart, but regardless of the outcome of that lawsuit, I hope that they are able to find some healing over the course of time.