Multiple mall shootings prompt Apple Store closure in North Carolina

AppleInsider

The Northlake Mall Apple Store in Charlotte, North Carolina, has abruptly closed permanently after multiple shootings occurred in the mall in recent months. New store to open in 2024.

An Apple Store in a mall

Apple has two retail locations in Charlotte, North Carolina -- Northlake and SouthPark. The Northlake location shut its doors permanently on Wednesday afternoon, though Apple hasn't provided a direct reason.

According to a report from Bloomberg, the Northlake Mall has suffered from at least three shootings within recent months, which prompted Apple to close the store. It was an abrupt closure, as the website for the store didn't indicate a closure a day earlier.

A message on Apple's website for the store states that a new store will open in Charlotte in early 2024. Customers will need to use the SouthPark location or Apple Store Online until the new location opens.

The Northlake employees were told by Apple that no layoffs would occur, according to the report. They would be transferred to the SouthPark store or assume roles at the online store.

Read on AppleInsider

radarthekat

One wonders if Apple had been in active discussion with the mail operators in order to gain some level of assurance regarding security of Apple Store staff and patrons and maybe failed to gain the level of assurance they were seeking.  This would be a plausible backstory for an abrupt shutdown.  

AppleZulu

What? I thought these states’ inexorable march toward unregulated, unrestricted gun sales and ownership was supposed to make everyone safer. You know, because of all the “good guys” wandering around, armed to the teeth. Did Apple check first to see if the mall shootings weren’t just some of those good guys exercising their freedom and protecting us?

bloggerblog

The more we automate jobs, the higher the crime. More jobs will be going away, from rig drivers to container ship captains to pizza workers and delivery. And yes there maybe a higher need for engineers, but those are few and far apart. Also if you’ve tried new AI platforms like ChatGPT, you can see how some of the software engineering roles are already being replaced by AI

9secondkox2

AppleZulu said:

What? I thought these states’ inexorable march toward unregulated, unrestricted gun sales and ownership was supposed to make everyone safer. You know, because of all the “good guys” wandering around, armed to the teeth. Did Apple check first to see if the mall shootings weren’t just some of those good guys exercising their freedom and protecting us?

Riiiiiiight like it was a legal, permitted, gun owner/carrier just shooting up the place…  such citizens would have been able to put a stop to these types of crimes in a hurry. You take away someone’s RIGHT to bear arms, then only the law abiding citizen is de-armed. The criminal still gets their guns and has a one-up on everyone else. Because the criminal doesn’t care about breaking the law. Simple math 

nobody wants guns being sold like candy with no responsibility. Total micharacterization to pretend to have a point. 

These kinds tissues are what you have when “defund the police” is a rallying cry and criminals know their victims cant defend themselves. The possibility of a gun is a much better deterrent than a purse weirder by granny to would be criminal minals, terrorists, etc. 

darelrex

FYI, Northlake Mall has been dying for some time, and Apple was already planning to move out. This latest shooting just provoked a decision to close the store the very next day, likely for the safety of Apple's employees and customers. I presume that Northlake must have been doing well when Apple first put a store there, but lately it's turned into a has-been ghost town, and sections of the mall are being converted to non-shopping uses.

geekmee

Wherever you have a concentration of haves and have nots, you’ll find a high crime rate.

sbdude

AppleZulu said:

What? I thought these states’ inexorable march toward unregulated, unrestricted gun sales and ownership was supposed to make everyone safer. You know, because of all the “good guys” wandering around, armed to the teeth. Did Apple check first to see if the mall shootings weren’t just some of those good guys exercising their freedom and protecting us?

It's cute that you think the supply of guns in this country will suddenly dry up in the event more restrictive gun control laws are enacted, or guns are banned altogether. These laws *may* work in Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain. The one thing they all have in common is that they are *islands*. if you are naive enough to think that guns won't somehow find their way across the southern, or even northern, borders, I've got an apple store to sell you. If we can't keep fentanyl out of this country, what make you think we can keep guns out? People who aren't supposed to own them still will. Grow up.

sbdude

geekmee said:

Wherever you have a concentration of haves and have nots, you’ll find a high crime rate.

Whenever you have a concentration of people raised by single mothers, or not at all, you'll have a high crime rate.

jcs2305

9secondkox2 said:

AppleZulu said:

What? I thought these states’ inexorable march toward unregulated, unrestricted gun sales and ownership was supposed to make everyone safer. You know, because of all the “good guys” wandering around, armed to the teeth. Did Apple check first to see if the mall shootings weren’t just some of those good guys exercising their freedom and protecting us?

Riiiiiiight like it was a legal, permitted, gun owner/carrier just shooting up the place…  such citizens would have been able to put a stop to these types of crimes in a hurry. You take away someone’s RIGHT to bear arms, then only the law abiding citizen is de-armed. The criminal still gets their guns and has a one-up on everyone else. Because the criminal doesn’t care about breaking the law. Simple math 

nobody wants guns being sold like candy with no responsibility. Total micharacterization to pretend to have a point. 

These kinds tissues are what you have when “defund the police” is a rallying cry and criminals know their victims cant defend themselves. The possibility of a gun is a much better deterrent than a purse weirder by granny to would be criminal minals, terrorists, etc. 

such citizens would have been able to put a stop to these types of crimes in a hurry.

And yet such citizens hardly ever do. There is mass shooting after shooting where there is never a legal carrying citizen intervention. Here and there you may see a story, but for the most part these citizens simply do not react when they are needed most. I have no issues with guns being legally owned but the notion that we are all somehow safer with these legal folks carrying because they can intervene simply doesn't happen and isn't reality.

These kinds tissues are what you have when “defund the police” is a rallying cry and criminals know their victims cant defend themselves. The possibility of a gun is a much better deterrent than a purse weirder by granny to would be criminal minals, terrorists, etc.

This is a stretch.. you are saying some misguided folks calling for the police to be de-funded has somehow emboldened criminals because they feel as if folks can't defend themselves because of the mention of de-funding? That doesn't even make sense.. Owning a gun for protection and having the training to use it to thwart a crime in progress are two totally different things. Most folks that range shoot and have a gun collection aren't ready to inject themselves into a mass shooting and try and take the shooter out. Most of them are thinking how do I get myself and my family away as safely and quickly as possible gun or no gun.

StrangeDays

9secondkox2 said:

AppleZulu said:

What? I thought these states’ inexorable march toward unregulated, unrestricted gun sales and ownership was supposed to make everyone safer. You know, because of all the “good guys” wandering around, armed to the teeth. Did Apple check first to see if the mall shootings weren’t just some of those good guys exercising their freedom and protecting us?

Riiiiiiight like it was a legal, permitted, gun owner/carrier just shooting up the place…  such citizens would have been able to put a stop to these types of crimes in a hurry. You take away someone’s RIGHT to bear arms, then only the law abiding citizen is de-armed. The criminal still gets their guns and has a one-up on everyone else. Because the criminal doesn’t care about breaking the law. Simple math 

nobody wants guns being sold like candy with no responsibility. Total micharacterization to pretend to have a point. 

These kinds tissues are what you have when “defund the police” is a rallying cry and criminals know their victims cant defend themselves. The possibility of a gun is a much better deterrent than a purse weirder by granny to would be criminal minals, terrorists, etc. 

You call attention to what you believe are strawmen arguments, even as you put out your own — defunding police departments doesn’t mean eliminating police, it means reducing the insane budgets that equip them with militarized weaponry and tactics, while investing in other areas of needed first responders calls for service, such as mental health professionals (they tend not to shoot those in need of help). 

As for rights - if the right to privacy and pursuit of happiness can be curtailed for women when making decisions over their own bodies, then certainly we can put restrictions on the right to purchase firearms. As a gun owner myself I’m all for making popular killing machine rifles more heavily regulated. 

hmlongco

jcs2305 said:

Most folks that range shoot and have a gun collection aren't ready to inject themselves into a mass shooting and try and take the shooter out. Most of them are thinking how do I get myself and my family away as safely and quickly as possible gun or no gun.

Nor do they want to be mistaken for the active shooter when the cops arrive.

All of which basically kills off the whole "good guy with a gun premise".

StrangeDays

sbdude said:

geekmee said:

Wherever you have a concentration of haves and have nots, you’ll find a high crime rate.

Whenever you have a concentration of people raised by single mothers, or not at all, you'll have a high crime rate.

Where you have a concentration of men imprisoned for drug violations, you have more single mothers. One day you’ll get it’s all connected — you can’t export all the manufacturing jobs overseas, decrease education budgets, and enact prohibition, and not expect crime to go up. 

That being said, violent crime has be on the decrease for decades. Hopefully legalization of silly drug prohibitions will help further. 

hmlongco

darelrex said:

FYI, Northlake Mall has been dying for some time, and Apple was already planning to move out. This latest shooting just provoked a decision to close the store the very next day, likely for the safety of Apple's employees and customers. I presume that Northlake must have been doing well when Apple first put a store there, but lately it's turned into a has-been ghost town, and sections of the mall are being converted to non-shopping uses.

And which isn't the image Apple wants to perpetuate in regard to its products. So while the sudden departure may have been "triggered" by the shootings, it appears as if the writing was already on the wall.

AppleZulu

9secondkox2 said:

AppleZulu said:

What? I thought these states’ inexorable march toward unregulated, unrestricted gun sales and ownership was supposed to make everyone safer. You know, because of all the “good guys” wandering around, armed to the teeth. Did Apple check first to see if the mall shootings weren’t just some of those good guys exercising their freedom and protecting us?

Riiiiiiight like it was a legal, permitted, gun owner/carrier just shooting up the place…  such citizens would have been able to put a stop to these types of crimes in a hurry. You take away someone’s RIGHT to bear arms, then only the law abiding citizen is de-armed. The criminal still gets their guns and has a one-up on everyone else. Because the criminal doesn’t care about breaking the law. Simple math 

nobody wants guns being sold like candy with no responsibility. Total micharacterization to pretend to have a point. 

These kinds tissues are what you have when “defund the police” is a rallying cry and criminals know their victims cant defend themselves. The possibility of a gun is a much better deterrent than a purse weirder by granny to would be criminal minals, terrorists, etc. 

Bills are being proposed and laws adopted by state legislatures all over the country that absolutely are about being able to sell guns "like candy with no responsibility." North Carolina is presently considering the removal of a requirement for a permit before purchasing a handgun. Other states have already removed requirements for permits, training, or anything beyond having a live pulse to open-carry or concealed carry. States are passing laws to prevent private businesses from prohibiting guns on their own private property. There's still no requirement for a background check for private sales, and there is still a prohibition from the use of computer records for the purpose of tracing gun sales or ballistics. You can use a fingerprint or facial recognition to lock your iPhone, but they put a stop to that technology being used for trigger locks on guns.

Gun manufacturers through their lobbying arm are pursuing a national policy of encouraging conflict and selling to both sides. Gun regulation is becoming more lax for the express purpose of making sure more guns get into the hands of "bad guys." That way, fear and propaganda can be used to promote sales of guns to alleged "good guys." The manufacturers profit both ways! Shootings at Northlake Mall are bad business for Apple, but they're profitable for the gun industry!

The premise that regulating gun ownership means only criminals will have guns is propaganda and lazy logic. The same logic means there should be no laws of any kind, because laws only restrict the law-abiding, not the criminals. That's just dumb. Despite Antotin Scalia's judicial activist efforts to pretend it's not there, the words "well-regulated" exist in the first clause of the Second Amendment, stating the purpose for the language in the second clause of the same amendment. There is no constitutional basis for the gun-rights absolutism that makes us all less safe, and, as seen in the case of Northlake Mall, does damage not only to the victims of the violence, but to the basic stability necessary to conduct business in the community. 

AppleZulu

sbdude said:

AppleZulu said:

What? I thought these states’ inexorable march toward unregulated, unrestricted gun sales and ownership was supposed to make everyone safer. You know, because of all the “good guys” wandering around, armed to the teeth. Did Apple check first to see if the mall shootings weren’t just some of those good guys exercising their freedom and protecting us?

It's cute that you think the supply of guns in this country will suddenly dry up in the event more restrictive gun control laws are enacted, or guns are banned altogether. These laws *may* work in Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain. The one thing they all have in common is that they are *islands*. if you are naive enough to think that guns won't somehow find their way across the southern, or even northern, borders, I've got an apple store to sell you. If we can't keep fentanyl out of this country, what make you think we can keep guns out? People who aren't supposed to own them still will. Grow up.

It's cute that you think those are the only countries that have more restrictive gun laws than the US. You can also list any number of non-islands that have more sensible regulation of guns and have far fewer murders and suicides as a result. Nobody with any sense thinks we're going to have no guns in this country. We just need fewer guns, and more accountability for gun ownership. As stated above, the premise that regulating gun ownership means only criminals will have guns is propaganda and lazy logic. The same logic means there should be no laws of any kind, because laws only restrict the law-abiding, not the criminals. That's just dumb. Grow up.

rgh71

9secondkox2 said:

AppleZulu said:

What? I thought these states’ inexorable march toward unregulated, unrestricted gun sales and ownership was supposed to make everyone safer. You know, because of all the “good guys” wandering around, armed to the teeth. Did Apple check first to see if the mall shootings weren’t just some of those good guys exercising their freedom and protecting us?

Riiiiiiight like it was a legal, permitted, gun owner/carrier just shooting up the place…  such citizens would have been able to put a stop to these types of crimes in a hurry. You take away someone’s RIGHT to bear arms, then only the law abiding citizen is de-armed. The criminal still gets their guns and has a one-up on everyone else. Because the criminal doesn’t care about breaking the law. Simple math 

nobody wants guns being sold like candy with no responsibility. Total micharacterization to pretend to have a point. 

These kinds tissues are what you have when “defund the police” is a rallying cry and criminals know their victims cant defend themselves. The possibility of a gun is a much better deterrent than a purse weirder by granny to would be criminal minals, terrorists, etc. 

Sorry but this was a real LOL moment.
Weird purses?
criminal minals?
written by a true genius!

waveparticle

AppleZulu said:

What? I thought these states’ inexorable march toward unregulated, unrestricted gun sales and ownership was supposed to make everyone safer. You know, because of all the “good guys” wandering around, armed to the teeth. Did Apple check first to see if the mall shootings weren’t just some of those good guys exercising their freedom and protecting us?

This is double truth. Western culture believe a free society is able to sustain double truths. 

13485

sbdude said:

AppleZulu said:

What? I thought these states’ inexorable march toward unregulated, unrestricted gun sales and ownership was supposed to make everyone safer. You know, because of all the “good guys” wandering around, armed to the teeth. Did Apple check first to see if the mall shootings weren’t just some of those good guys exercising their freedom and protecting us?

It's cute that you think the supply of guns in this country will suddenly dry up in the event more restrictive gun control laws are enacted, or guns are banned altogether. These laws *may* work in Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain. The one thing they all have in common is that they are *islands*. if you are naive enough to think that guns won't somehow find their way across the southern, or even northern, borders, I've got an apple store to sell you. If we can't keep fentanyl out of this country, what make you think we can keep guns out? People who aren't supposed to own them still will. Grow up.

So you think that the relationship of a landmass with a large body of water is a factor in people there being less likely to kill each other with high powered weapons. Yeah, sure. Makes zero sense.

AppleZulu

sbdude said:

AppleZulu said:

What? I thought these states’ inexorable march toward unregulated, unrestricted gun sales and ownership was supposed to make everyone safer. You know, because of all the “good guys” wandering around, armed to the teeth. Did Apple check first to see if the mall shootings weren’t just some of those good guys exercising their freedom and protecting us?

It's cute that you think the supply of guns in this country will suddenly dry up in the event more restrictive gun control laws are enacted, or guns are banned altogether. These laws *may* work in Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain. The one thing they all have in common is that they are *islands*. if you are naive enough to think that guns won't somehow find their way across the southern, or even northern, borders, I've got an apple store to sell you. If we can't keep fentanyl out of this country, what make you think we can keep guns out? People who aren't supposed to own them still will. Grow up.

Also, coincidentally, this issue is the subject of the latest episode of the AppleTV+ show The Problem With Jon Stewart. In it, (among many other things) he pointed out that the vast majority of gun crimes in Mexico are committed with guns that came from the US, so our oversupply means they’re flowing out, not in. 

AppleZulu

waveparticle said:

AppleZulu said:

What? I thought these states’ inexorable march toward unregulated, unrestricted gun sales and ownership was supposed to make everyone safer. You know, because of all the “good guys” wandering around, armed to the teeth. Did Apple check first to see if the mall shootings weren’t just some of those good guys exercising their freedom and protecting us?

This is double truth. Western culture believe a free society is able to sustain double truths. 

"Western culture" is not a person, and therefore doesn't believe anything.

Some people in the West believe stupid things, yes, and other people in the West use sarcasm to point out those stupid things. Happily, at least so far, we're able to do both without being sent to "re-education camps" until we learn to only say the official things that we are told to say we believe, even if privately we know those beliefs to be stupid. This is apparently more of a problem in some Eastern cultures.