[quote name='Darkside Hazuki']Careful, Professor. This seems to imply that such motives are
necessary to succeed in business. Of course, we all have different definitions of success...[/QUOTE]
To be fair, some of my quotes come off as if I'm some sort of full-on laissez-faire capitalist. I'm not that by any stretch. I surely don't think that it's in the best interests of society that a mining company or a steel mill finds it cheaper to pay the penalties, fines, and hush money for accidental injuries or deaths than does to keep its business up to government standards. I tend to value human life over the "bottom line" in business.
Nevertheless, the kind of "EB Games could have prevented this" nonsense is little more than an irrational, knee-jerk, emotive reaction to an isolated incident. Something really bugs me about this matter (particularly the fact that the murderer was in the store prior to opening, unless they knew how to rearrange the store to look like it never opened for the day), and it's something that tells me there's more personal than nonpersonal robbery about this case. Even if it is shown to be nothing more than a run of the mill robbery gone awry, to suggest that having another employee present would change things is really missing the point, because they can't prove that. Is a second person a deterrent? Sure, so is a camera. Is it a foolproof deterrent? Not a chance. Is it an effective deterrent? On some days (PS3 launch, for instance) would it be nice to have extra employees? Hell, the PS3 launch should have had police on the premise until all units were sold that day. But will it be a cost-effective solution to have two employees working at all times? Oh, no, not at all. It's not nice to say that, but they are a business, and I think that occurrences such as this are so isolated that a company-wide response (mandatory two-person workforce) would be an unnecessarily and irrational response.
Truth be told, I'm no

ing gun advocate at *all*, but one thing that does have a massive depression on personal crime victimization rates is conceal and carry legislation. Passing C&C in Texas dropped the forcible rape rate to the

ing floor, and if we're going to focus on preventative responses to crime (rather than reactive), I don't see why C&C legislation would be such a bad thing. Moreover, it would reduce the number of goddamned kids working in stores, and perhaps force a living wage amongst workers in various no-collar industries.