Methinks you miss the salient point to this legislation.
Methinks it is you who have completely missed my point.
I was expressing my dislike of the premise of any law passed by a government who has assumed that its citizens will commit a crime and therefore must legislate to prevent them from being able to take any action that can possibly lead to the commission of that crime regardless of whether or not they do so. Not just this law but any such law. Should there not be evidence of a crime first or is treating everyone as though they will commit a crime good enough to justify curtailing your activities? Is there no longer a presumption of innocence until proven guilty or have we abandoned that as well?
Put yourself in the station attendant's shoes and consider this.
That is an emotional response which is not neccessarily indicative of a reasoned impartial examination of the facts. Exactly why laws are not passed solely by those who have direct and personal emotional investment in their outcome and thankfully so for the sake of all of us.
The law isn't treating anyone as a criminal, ......
It most certainly is.
The law is not written to punish those who break the law after they have done so. It is written to curtail the activities of all citizens before a crime has been committed and regardless of whether they have even broken the law or not. This law, by virtue of its blanket application, assumes that all consumers, not just some, cannot be trusted to pay for their purchase and therefore all consumers must be compelled by force of law to pay in advance to avoid the crime of theft that has not taken place yet.
I think we can agree that one such incident is to many. The reality is that literally millions of gas purchases were being executed lawfully every week without consequence before the adoption of this law. As terrible as that incident was there are hundreds of thousands more people killed specifically due to speeding every year- a slaughter of humanity by comparison. Not every driver can be trusted not to speed. As a means to curtail that deviant behavior and as a corrective measure the government should send all drivers speeding tickets in the mail? Consider them guilty before they have actually committed the crime of speeding because they might do so? Extreme example I know but to make the point that even though the circumstances are different the premise is the same. The law is supposed to exact punishment after a crime has been committed, not strike preemptively against those who have comitted no crime. In fact the consequences, carnage and death toll due to speeding are far greater. More importantly the opportunity for people to speed on a regular basis is infinately greater than the opportunity to steal gas is. As such, this law to deal with speeding is even more justified than paying before you pump. I doubt that you would support such a law deeming you guilty of speeding without evidence of having done so. Where does it stop?