Yeah, I feel like policies like the locked racks were thought up before the great decrease in retail staffing levels. At current staffing levels, a lot of places are operating on what would have been considered a light skeleton crew, all the time. I bet there were more workers on the graveyard shift of a 24-hour Walmart 20 years ago, than there are at most stores during the day today (not counting pickers for delivery/pickup orders).

Precisely. And when everyone knows that the commercial lifeblood of a town is so hinged on multiple factors outside people's control, well... Might as well get those underpants while they're still in town, right? If you don't steal them and then Walmart pulls up stakes next month anyway because it makes more sense to invest in Tallahassee than your poor neck of the woods, you'll just feel like a sucker.

The Walmart next to me closed due to rampant looting, and it was the only real store in a several mile radius.

I was in there once and people were just taking stuff off the shelves and walking straight out with it like it wasn't shit.