Black Friday has a notorious reputation of causing people to do crazy things.

Year after year, another story hits the media about an insane techie bombarding Best Buy for the best deal on a new TV the morning after Thanksgiving, inevitably hurting someone in the process.

The holiday season is seen by most as a time to focus on being selfless. Despite this, Black Friday continues to cause people to fly to the other side of this spectrum, seemingly putting their selfish wants and desires over the person in front of them in line.

These insane bargain hunters have stolen, cut in line, started massive riots, and are even responsible for the deaths of innocent employees and customers.

Major retailers have fed this fire by lowering the prices, advertising “doorbusters” and more recently, opening their doors the night of Thanksgiving, forcing the shoppers to leave their family feasts early in hopes of getting the newest device for a low price.

A death that happened at a major retail store would seem to cause a business to tone down the deals in hopes of calming down the anxious crowds that will raid the stores that fateful morning.

But it looks like these tragedies have had an opposite effect.

Utilizing persuasive advertising and making a profit is one thing, but encouraging the irrational antics that happen year after year on Black Friday is wrong.

By no means does the blame for these incidents fall purely on the stores which host them. Without the massive number of early morning and late evening shoppers that accumulate each year, Black Friday wouldn’t have become what it is today.

Common sense and human kindness seem to fly out of the window. Something about low prices and large crowds seems to turn modern day bargain hunters into something like the savage boys from the “Lord of the Flies.”

Basic rules and guidelines that were learned in preschool now have to be reiterated by employees before opening the doors. No pushing, no shoving, and no cutsies.

The best approach to solve this rising problem is to just sit out these “hot” deals, but large crowds that will inevitably appear starting the evening following Thanksgiving dinner.

Anybody who plans to take part in Black Friday should be prepared to exercise extreme patience, something the common American seems to lack.

This behavior has been avoided long enough. It’s time to step back, and take a deep breath.