WASHINGTON — US firearms sales reached a record 129,166 during last week's Black Friday that kicked off the holiday shopping season, a 32 percent increase from the previous all-time high, officials said.
The FBI confirmed the jump from the last peak of 97,848 weapons sold during Black Friday of 2008, telling AFP that "we do not have an explanation for the increase."...[Full Article]
We all knew that this was coming, didn't we? Each year Black Friday violence just seems to get worse and worse. What does it say about American consumers when they are willing to fight like crazed animals just to save a few bucks on cheap plastic crap made in China? Not that retailers are innocent in any of this. It certainly seems as though many of them purposely create wild situations on Black Friday where customers will rush like crazy people into their stores and nearly riot as they fight over discounted merchandise. The more Black Friday madness there is, the more of an "event" it becomes, and the higher the profits of the retailers go. This year there was more Black Friday hype than ever and there was also more Black Friday violence than ever. It is being projected that this year a record-setting 152 million Americans will go shopping between Thanksgiving and Sunday night. That may be good news for the big corporate retailers, but the shocking lack of character being displayed by American consumers all over the country this weekend is very bad news for the future of this nation. (Read More....)
LOS ANGELES – A mother of three shot pepper spray to keep shoppers from grabbing a video game system she wanted during a Black Friday sale, leaving 20 people with minor injuries, authorities said.
The incident occurred shortly after 10:20 p.m. Thursday in a crowded Los Angeles-area Walmart as shoppers hungry for deals were let inside the store.
Police said the suspect shot the pepper spray when the coverings over the item she wanted were removed.
"Somehow she was trying to use it to gain an upper hand," police Lt. Abel Parga told The Associated Press early Friday.
He said she was apparently after an Xbox 360 and used the pepper spray to keep other shoppers at bay...[Full Article]
The video game section of the Buckeye store got a little rowdy when people started trying to tear open boxes of games, and one woman got punched.
After one man’s grandson got trampled, he put the video game he was holding in his waistband in order to free up his hands and lift the boy out of the crowd, according to KSAZ.
That’s when cops moved in, slamming the grandfather’s head on the hard Wal-Mart floor. The aftermath was caught on cell phone video.“Are you sure that was necessary for shoplifting?” one customer asked as the cops cuffed the unconscious man, his head lying in a pool of blood.
“You done knocked the motherfucker out,” another shopper said. “That’s your goddamn job.”
As an officer rolled the man over, it became obvious that he was out cold. Another officer quickly found that more than paper towels were needed to clean up the mess.
“They grabbed the guy, body planted him into the ground — face shatters on concrete,” shopper Skyler Stone told KSAZ. “That’s a hard concrete floor inside Walmart.”
“All of a sudden, you see this little boy run up and wailing and yelling, ‘Grandpa, Grandpa,’ and crying his eyes out,” Stone added...[Full Article]
