Nineteen-year-old Colt Harris-Moore didn’t have to give to the poor to parlay his string of robberies into folk heroism.

All he needed was a gimmick — committing a crime or two while barefooted — and a dysfunctional family to blame everything on. Add to that the power of Facebook, the Internet social-networking site, and Presto! We have the “Barefoot Bandit.”

I extend to Colt my sympathies for the kind of environment in which he grew up. No kid should have to deal with abusive situations at home. I withhold my approval of the way he got out of it: by embarking on a wave of crime that seems to have started when he was 7 years old and, if accusations are on target, culminated in the theft of five small aircraft, two cars and a boat. He is also suspected of burglarizing at least 100 private residences.

The Barefoot Bandit accumulated tens of thousands of followers on Facebook. Songs were written about him. T-shirts were designed and worn in his honor.  The applause you hear is not coming from occupants of the homes he burglarized or owners of the aircraft, boat and automobiles he is accused of stealing.

Colt apparently has joined the parade of outlaw heroes that stretches from the legendary Robin Hood through the bank-robbing murderer, Jesse James.

Colt seems to fit the physical image of Robin Hood’s sidekick, Little John, who was big and tough, though of course a good natured “merry man.” Colt stands 6 feet 5 and weighs 205 pounds, which makes him a formidable figure when he’s pursuing his thieving ways.

Nobody is sure whether Robin Hood actually existed, although there are legends aplenty. In some of them, he is a “yeoman,” which means he was not of the nobility. Others portray him as a nobleman who was bilked out of his domain and had to turn to outlawry to support himself. Anyway, his conduct was justified by making charity the object of his robbery: He robbed from the rich and gave to the poor.

That philosophy was summed up in a later century by the principle: “From each according to his means; to each according to his needs.” Karl Marx made that the foundation of his political, social and economic theory, and Lenin, Stalin and Mao put it into practice under the name of communism.

Many of those who applaud Colt’s daring probably curse the government for taxing us all for the benefit of those unable (or unwilling) to fend for themselves. There is a difference between taxes levied by a representative government and loot forcibly or stealthily extracted from unwilling owners.

Had Colt availed himself of the services provided by his government, he would have had no need to rob and steal, and he wouldn’t be facing the prospect of years in prison.

On the other hand, his mother wouldn’t have had to hire an “entertainment lawyer” to deal with all the movie makers eager to exploit his outlaw career on film. In the media age, crime may pay, indeed.

The outlaws of the Wild West have produced many hours of entertainment after their acts were cleaned up by screen writers.

Jesse James’ hand was active in the frontier violence in Missouri and Kansas that helped touch off the Civil War. His heart didn’t prevent him from committing murder in the course of his robberies. And his brain didn’t keep him from turning his back to a partner in crime, who shot him as he turned to straighten a picture on the wall of his home.

There seems little evidence that the James Brothers used their robberies to fund a massive charity effort on the frontier. They may have spread some of the loot among friends, but they used most of it for themselves.

The Barefoot Bandit seems to have used his crime spree to keep himself out of group homes and other facilities designed to set him on a law-abiding course. But I suspect that he loved the thrill of the adventure, the belief that he was outsmarting those who sought to catch him.

Maybe he’ll achieve lasting fame and legitimate prosperity in the manner of Frank William Abagnale Jr., whose skill at check forging and other illicit practices eventually earned him a job as a consultant with the FBI. It also netted a Steven Spielberg movie featuring Leonardo DiCaprio as Abagnale and Tom Hanks as his FBI nemesis. The movie was based on his ghost-written autobiography. Starting at the age of 17, Abagnale forged more than $2.5 million in checks while impersonating a doctor, a lawyer, an airline pilot and a prison inspector. He may be a hero to Spielberg, but I doubt that the victims of his offenses look upon him kindly.

Other criminals who enjoy more acclaim than the Jean Valjeans of he world who steal for a living include those who hack into our computers, gleefully planting viruses that can destroy hours of hard work, disrupting businesses and costing real money to their hapless victims. If I had my way, those villains would be confined to the blackest dungeons.

Even more reprehensible are those who find ways of invading and contaminating the food and drugs we consume, all for the forbidden thrill of doing harm and getting away with it.

So excuse me if I don’t join in the applause for the Barefoot Bandit. I hope he’ll cooperate in his own rehabilitation. And I hope any profits that come from his notoriety will go into a fund to compensate his victims.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 317 Braeburn Drive, Anderson, S.C. 29621, or e-mail him at WadesDixieco@aol.com.