Is it stealing if

[countrygirl12]

Do you often find onions and cooking pots in the parking lot?!

Well that was my first thought.  I did find 2-3 packs of drinks on the bottom of a shopping cart at the grocery store. I took it back in the store. I try to spend as little time as possible inside stores and the lines at the return desk are pretty long so if I happened across that now I would just mind my own business and go on. I would not take it with me.

[UGetPaid]

In my eye, some times happenings is not stealing. Stealing is when the thing that you take will hurt another.

I respectfully disagree with that opinion. Harm is not a necessary element of theft. You can argue that it might have less of an impact on one "victim" as opposed to another "victim", but taking something that doesn't belong to you - even when there is no impact on the owner and a tremendously needed benefit to the offender - is still stealing.


Even if the owner would gladly donate the item to someone in need if given the choice, taking it without giving them that choice is theft. You can even argue that hoarding money or supplies far in excess of what you need when others are in desperate need is wrong, and that may be true on some levels, but that still does not negate the fact that helping myself to those excess supplies without permission is still stealing.

[mrsmere]

Of course it is especially anything involving a store such as eating grapes etc before paying for it.