so much in this community seems to be dedicated to enabling the scum that go around stealing form peoples wallets, and so many seem opposed to anything that might stop them
WHY?
?
Because it is time people relearn to take responsibility for their mistakes. If you use the same pass everywhere and your coind get stolen because someone got your login from a private 100-men forum where the admin logs passwords, then that was a mistake you have to take responsibility for.
If you leave your Coins with anyone else and he refuses to give them back, the mistake is to leave your coins with someone else in the first place. Sure if you want to exchange your coins you might have to send them to an exchange, but you don't have to do it with all your coins at once, you can do it in small amounts and never leave coins with anyone else except yourself.
You do not own any bitcoins if you don't control the private keys to them. This kind of responsibility is hard to re-learn for some people since there has always been someone protecting them with chargebacks etc.
That being said, you might want to check out
www.pi-wallet.com for an easy and secure solution to store in a way that leaved the private keys only to yourself. offline!