"some Type Ts become base jumpers or Mafia hit men, while others settle for swiping Brie and organic tomatoes from Safeway."
Grocery shopping is my favorite sport-- and I'm really, really good at it.
Stealing would totally take the fun out of it. Like golfing a great game and then cheating on your scorecard. What's the fun in that?
That's why I ring up everything, 100% of the time.
BTW-- your thread title is total bait-and-switch. Shame on you. 
I think these five finger moralists are in need of better argument to justify their thievery, one of which would be that the amount stolen from supermarkets from self checkout registers each year is probably less than or equal to the amounts that supermarkets steal from their customers by programming the scanners in the checkout lines to overcharge customers, what they might call product expansion. So, offsetting fouls--first and ten.This entire situation could be avoided if all supermarkets would adopt the Amazon "GO" philosophy and have no checkout lines, just one omniscient Big Brother.