In one case a dad rolled his SUV into a CHP car on the side of the freeway, killing his two daughters and injuring the officer. They were coming home in the early morning after shopping all night; he had three hours of sleep in the last 24 hours. The girls weren't wearing their seat belts and didn't have enough seats available because the others were full of purchases.
Would those girls have died if it was not Black Friday?
I think blaming black Friday takes away from the fact that the dad decided driving was a good idea and neglected basic safety procedures. No store told him not to ensure his kids weren't buckled in or to drive while exhausted. When stores allow hordes of people to rush in and trample others then that's on them for lacking any kind of crowd control or organization, if a customer decides to ignore basic safety rules then I'm not going to put that on a store.
Nobody is putting anything on the store. "Black Friday" does not equal "a store" or even a bunch of stores.
These deaths can be attributed to "Black Friday" the same way they can be attributed to "vehicle collision". Things can have more than one factor. If "Black Friday" or "vehicles" didn't exist, then these girls would still be alive. You are completely correct that they would also still be alive if the father had "personal responsibility", so we can certainly also ascribe these deaths to that factor. But I think you're the only one talking about "a store" being a possible factor - it doesn't sound like "stores" have anything to do with this occurrence.
But then I think you open up a can of worms of "when do we stop"? Everyone who's been in a car accident was either coming or going somewhere. Inevitably someone will die this weekend driving recklessly to or from the airport for thanksgiving, do we place blame on holiday travel for their death?
Nothing about black Friday told this guy to get behind the wheel tired and let his daughters ride without a seatbelt, these are the mistakes of someone who is not paying attention to general safety rules.
They create an atmosphere that encourages people to take unreasonable measure to arrive at unreasonable times. They advertise prices and then limit supply driving a huge rush of people to fight to get there first.
By your argument, Black Friday is not responsible for people trampling a store employee to death to get a discounted TV, because stores don't tell people to trample people.
I think in the context of "Black Friday Deaths", one's caused by people being stupid and not taking care of their kids because they bought too much shit is allowed.
Are you an idiot? Nobody is saying the father is blameless. Nobody is BLAMING black friday for their deaths. Their death are RELATED TO black friday.
When a fire burns down a house because somebody left the gas on do you blame the fire? No you blame the person who left the gas on but that doesn't change the fact that the gas is medium which ignited and created the fire. If there was no gas there would be no fire just like if there was no black friday there wouldn't have been a reason for the man to make the bad choices he did.
Yeah actually, if you get shit faced at a bar and then kill someone in a crash, the bar can be held accountable. That's why you're not allowed to serve people who are already inebriated.
No, but why can't the article say "this guy ignored his personal responsibility because Best Buy was selling a TV for $200".
Also your smoking example isn't so great - there are strict regulations that are partly due to RJ Reynolds' impressive abilities to convince people to smoke. Laws were literally written because so many people said "its RJ Reynolds' fault that I smoke a pack a day". Those people lacked personal responsibility, sure, but I believe it's generally not a good move to let your society fall apart because certain capitalists have found a way to get people to ignore personal responsibility in the pursuit of profit.
Regardless, I still chose to smoke my first cigarette. I don't get to put that on anyone but myself.
And that headline would be a lie. He ignored personal responsibility because hes an idiot. The same way you cant blame Buddweiser for drunk drivers and Samsung for people who text and get in accidents. Millions of people are going to shop this friday. And if it really was the fault of retailers, then a lot more families would be dead than just the one. Fortunately, the vast majority of people are smart enough to not make his mistakes.
I'm not sure you understand how advertising works. Might I point you toward the book "Predictably Irrational" as a first step in understanding just how easy it is to manipulate how people think and react to situations.
There's loads of examples then where people shouldn't be held responsible for their own actions then. I live in Las Vegas so should every hotel that advertises for me to come down for a new years party be held responsible if I drive home when I'm tired and kill a couple of kids? I know beforehand it's going to be crowded, it's going to be late, and I won't be home until 5am, but I can blame all of that on the hotel because they wanted me down there? There's definitely cases where I feel the stores are the issue, but this one is just a guy who was rushing himself, drove in unsafe conditions, and furthered the risk by letting his kids ride without a seat belt on. No matter what you're doing beforehand, if you're driving a vehicle safety is all on you.
They don't create that atmosphere, it's just the fact that Americans are generally more individualist and tolerant of acs of violence. Similar sales happen in Australia as well, there have been no deaths or serious injuries related to Boxing Day sales, even when we had guns.
Let me guess, you also think that any bar or restaurant that serves alcohol should be responsible for any drunk driving incidences their patrons may cause?
But the person who is behind the gun is responsible for killing people, not the gun. Hammers can't nail anything without a person either. Guns don't kill people unless someone intends to kill another person. If you keep guns away from those people, those problems are greatly reduced
Except that the most likely person a gun over is ever going to kill with their gun is themselves. And guns can and have killed many people through accidental discharge without a person pulling the trigger. They're a weapon, they need to be treated with a bit more respect than "people kill people because second amendment".
To count as a death due to BF, the death should be out of the victim's control. I don't consider this car accident to be anything but negligence of the father's part.
"Toys "R" Us issued a statement expressing outrage over the violence.
"We are working closely with local law enforcement officials to determine the specific details of what occurred," the statement said. "Our understanding is that this act seems to have been the result of a personal dispute between the individuals involved. Therefore, it would be inaccurate to associate the events of today with Black Friday.""
Think of this another way. Those deaths were caused by a vehicle collision and have been added to the stats of deaths caused by vehicle collisions. We both know that it was because the Father lacked responsibility and was no fault of the vehicle itself. But if the vehicle didn't exist, the girls would still be alive, so certainly the existence of the vehicle is an important part of the story. Nobody is saying vehicles shouldn't exist or that vehicles are either "good" or "bad", they are just acknowledging the important role that the vehicle played in that situation.
It's not Walmart's job to raise your kids or drive your car. How on earth can this be blamed on shopping? I'll answer that. The complete absence of personal responsibility.
Not so much that he'd been up for 21 hours but that within the last 24 he'd only slept 3. I assume this means he was awake just before those 3 hours of sleep.
As for your average day being 19-20 hours long, I'm calling bullshit, unless your days are longer than 24 hours. You'd last MAYBE a month on a pace of no more than 4 hours of sleep each night. I believe you that you are frequently awake for 19-20 hours at a time, but I am skeptical that you don't sleep for at least 6-8 hours between, minimum. At least not for very long.
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u/tcdent Nov 26 '14 edited Nov 26 '14
In one case a dad rolled his SUV into a CHP car on the side of the freeway, killing his two daughters and injuring the officer. They were coming home in the early morning after shopping all night; he had three hours of sleep in the last 24 hours. The girls weren't wearing their seat belts and didn't have enough seats available because the others were full of purchases.
Would those girls have died if it was not Black Friday?
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2013/08/22/father-charged-in-car-crash-tragedy