“Fans attending Major League Baseball games are being greeted in a new way this year: with metal detectors at the ballparks. Touted as a counterterrorism measure, they’re nothing of the sort. They’re pure security theater: They look good without doing anything to make us safer. We’re stuck with them because of a combination of buck passing, CYA thinking and fear.” Baseball’s new metal detectors won’t keep you safe. They’ll just make you miss a few innings. is an outstanding take-down of MLB’s “gun-free zones” in a paper otherwise dedicated to civilian disarmament (go figure). The WaPo article goes a little something like this . . .
As a security measure, the new devices are laughable. The ballpark metal detectors are much more lax than the ones at an airport checkpoint. They aren’t very sensitive — people with phones and keys in their pockets aresailing through — and there are no X-ray machines. Bags get the same cursory search they’ve gotten for years. And fans wanting to avoid the detectors can opt for a “light pat-down search” instead.
There’s no evidence that this new measure makes anyone safer. A halfway competent ticketholder would have no trouble sneaking a gun into the stadium. For that matter, a bomb exploded at a crowded checkpoint would be no less deadly than one exploded in the stands. These measures will, at best, be effective at stopping the random baseball fan who’s carrying a gun or knife into the stadium. That may be a good idea, but unless there’s been a recent spate of fan shootings and stabbings at baseball games — and there hasn’t — this is a whole lot of time and money being spent to combat an imaginary threat.
OK, the “it may be a good idea” bit fits the WaPo’s anti-gun agenda. And Security Technologist Bruce Schneier doesn’t once make the pro-gun-rights-in-stadia argument. Which completely neglects an important downside of turning stadia into civilian disarmament zones: what happens on the way to and from a major sporting event. It’s a bad, bad thing (e.g., here, here and here).
While it helps, you don’t have to be a gun guy to see how Schneier’s destruction of the “logic” underpinning the stadia gun ban applies to gun bans generally. To wit:
It’s an attitude I’ve seen before: “Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, we must do it.” Never mind if the something makes any sense or not.
In reality, this is CYA security, and it’s pervasive in post-9/11 America. It no longer matters if a security measure makes sense, if it’s cost-effective or if it mitigates any actual threats. All that matters is that you took the threat seriously, so if something happens you won’t be blamed for inaction. It’s security, all right — security for the careers of those in charge.
American gun rights shouldn’t end at the ballpark gates – especially if the venue is financed with public money. Blood in the stands! Yeah, sure. Just like it was for the last God-knows-how-many years . OK, let’s pivot . . .
In a previous life, TTAG’s Testing and Reviews Editor Nick Leghorn did risk analysis for the Department of Homeland Security. The other day, Nick and I were discussing forthcoming terrorist attacks on American soil. Nick told me he wasn’t all that concerned about the socio-political effects of a Mumbai-style attack on a mall or other crowded area – although he’d hate to see it happen.
“What I worry about is college football games,” Nick said.
“Black Sunday?” I asked.
“Like that,” he answered. “Without the blimp.”
Over the Post, Schneier poo-pooed the possibility of a terrorist bomb attack at a major sporting event.
There’s no evidence that this new measure makes anyone safer. A halfway competent ticketholder would have no trouble sneaking a gun into the stadium. For that matter, a bomb exploded at a crowded checkpoint would be no less deadly than one exploded in the stands. These measures will, at best, be effective at stopping the random baseball fan who’s carrying a gun or knife into the stadium. That may be a good idea, but unless there’s been a recent spate of fan shootings and stabbings at baseball games — and there hasn’t — this is a whole lot of time and money being spent to combat an imaginary threat.
But imaginary threats are the only ones baseball executives have to stop this season; there’s been no specific terrorist threat or actual intelligence to be concerned about. MLB executives forced this change on ballparks based on unspecified discussions with the Department of Homeland Security after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. Because, you know, that was also a sporting event.
Yes. Yes it was. And it wasn’t imaginary.
Question: do you really want to trust your life to the ability of stadia security staff and three-letter feds to detect and deter a terrorist bomb threat at a major sporting event? I don’t. Call me paranoid, but armed or unarmed, police snipers or not, I’m not going there. You?