If I was going for maximum disturbance and terror, a good slash wound can put out WAY more blood than a deep narrow stab unless you hit a major vessel. I knoe more people would freak out at seeing a waterfall of blood pouring out of a relatively innocuous slash across a face or neck than a seeping stab. I have gotten totally harmless cuts on my forehead that made my bathroom look like an abbatoir. Seems to me that ripping the throat or face of a flight attendant and ‘tossing’ her into the crowd would be way more effective at cowing the mass of sheeple on a plane, making them take time and personnel to care for her, and saving the other one to threaten someone else with.
This just in… We’ve just gone to plaid alert. Yup, we’re going plaid. Now feel free to be afraid. We won’t tell you what to do about it, or free up any funds to do anything useful, but be scared anyway. It’s all about the “appearance” of doing something, without actually doing anything useful. Keep the locals riled up and make them jump through hoops, so they THINK something is being done.
Well, since you bastards have semi-hi jacked my thread I’m going to jump in 
What about CDs? As I understand it, regular CDs are still ok on a flight. A CD is pretty strong plastic and I’m sure can take a good edge. It even comes with a handy finger hole.
Hell, I’m sure today’s prepared terrorist could fastion a metal CD with a nice fancy label. I mean, we are talking about serious terrorists with some fairly decent funding.
Stuff like this doesn’t protect anyone. It used to be that when a terrorist takes an airplane, you let him do whatever. These days that’s not going to happen. If I’m on an aircraft I’m not going to sit on my hands.
The reason why shit like this was allowed to happen is because the FAA’s own “rule book” was fucking wrong. I’m all for keeping guns and bombs off an aircraft but stupid nail files don’t protect anyone.
And that’s pretty much why the world is so fucked. Too many people are sheep. If I’m at work and someone starts going off, I’m going to help take them down.
I’m just hoping things return to normal at my work place. The security guard (the same one from the morning) asked to see my ID when I went out on break. My manager (who was smoking next to the door and who I spoke to) burst out laughing. What a joke.
to pick an example:
remember when some hero killed a bunch of people in a McDonald’s? The lawyers lined up to sue because McDonald’s didn’t provide enough security. (As if MickyD should surround the place with armed guards.)
Management knows security is a fraud, but it will protect management from lawsuits.
I hate to ask , but where do you work ? if you dont mind mentioning it.
I can understand if you choose not too.
The reason I am asking is if your company has also taken into concideration the litton truck bombing back in the eighties , in Malton.
Sounds like some bright soul in your company put together an action plan to keep the rest of the sheep feeling somewhat safe.
Declan
I work at Bell Mobility in Mississauga. If you’re going to attack my building please inform me so that I can take a vacation day. Thanks
There was a truck bombing in the eighties around here? Do you have any online article about that?
We’re not stopping any trucks or anything here at work. Even though we’re very vunerable to that sort of thing (we’re all glass with 3 buildings facing a centre court yard). We’d be screwed if something like that happened here.
I’m starting to feel bad about how I’m treating the security guards. I’m pretty pissed about being forced to “check in” that I’ve started pointedly ignoring them and treating them like furniture. I know it’s not their fault (they probably make less than the people they’re “guarding”) but it’s hard to be nice while being treated like a fucking terrorist.
I’m just going to ignore them now. This morning I wasn’t paying attention and entered through the front (where I have to "check in) instead of walking in from the side (there I don’t have to check in, how silly is that?). I even saw the same women guard that I ignored yesterday and she wanted me to sign in. Gods damnit when will it end?!
And it’s not even that so much as, “if we remove what would be the obvious, but on second thought really isn’t,” then people will feel safer. Goes back to the perception of safety vs. not.
Ravenman is one of the few sensible people I’ve heard on this topic. No, your car lock won’t stop someone from breaking into your car by smashing a window, but it will give someone pause (or at least ensure that you’re attacked only by a more competent/desperate class of criminal). Does that mean you should lock your door? Yes. I know people who have open-top Jeeps that lock the doors because it keeps the criminals out! When they don’t lock the doors, their stuff gets stolen!
Re: plate glass doors. In the High Middle Ages when people started getting locks on their doors, thieves just started going in through the walls. Does that mean that since a criminal could shoot out the hinges of your door with a shotgun or drive a bulldozer through the door, you’re not safe?
You see we’re quickly getting into the excluded middle/slippery slope here. Read the book DESIGN OF EVERYDAY THINGS wherein there’s an interesting discussion of how what something is constructed of will affect what people think they can do with it, specifically why people would spraypaint/smash plexiglass phone booths, but leave the plywood that was used to replace it alone.
Back to butterknives though, if you want to take someone up on the offer of plastic knife vs. no weapon, I’ll do it (of course, we’ll use training knives instead). No one is going to use the sharpened KFC knife as a weapon unless they’ve got some skills to begin with. Having a weapon gives several advantages to the “knifer,” mostly psychological, including 1) they have a weapon and you don’t 2) they managed to sneak through security and now you’re alone 3) if they immediately knife someone, as the hijakers on 9/11 did, it’s a show of force and will demoralize the people in the audience. The issue, clearly is not that the knife itself is strong.
Scroll down a few seconds and the gist of the litton bombing incident comes up .
But a short review , is that some “activists” decided to take direct action , hence their name and place a truck bomb in the litton facility on the east side of hwy 27 , with the intent on destroying or disruption construction of components for the then new cruise missile guidance system.
12 people injured , 5 million clams damages , and total disruption of the microwave oven supply for at least a year.
Declan
And it takes all of about one sharp fling against a plaster wall to give it one.
Crack a CD in half and you have 2 fairly sharp knives.
Creating a ‘torrent’ of blood does have more psychological effect on witnesses than doing massive physical damage that is virtually bloodless, also.
If it weren’t illegal, I’d take the challenge. In a large part because it’s not a matter of being defended when you’re expecting an attack, but what things would work for weapons in an ambush situation. After all, I sure as shit don’t worry about being taken out with boxcutters when I go to the local supermarket - and I’ve met some pretty scary people working retail.
Likewise, Cheesesteak, the issue isn’t about what’s more dangerous - I’d rather have a lacrosse stick in a good old fashioned fight than a box-cutter. But the box-cutters were what was used on 9/11.
Having said all that - to perfectly honest, I’m in 100% agreement with the OP. 99.9% of the security measures taken since 9/11 are window dressing, pure and simple. In a large part because the public wouldn’t accept the real delays, and intrusions that effective security would require. Some of the changes at airports that have been made since 9/11 are real, and should be effective. But most of the crap they’re handing us, from the HSD, to my crack-smoking junior senator’s desire to make the US/Canada border ‘airtight’ is simply smoke and mirrors.
The fact is that any free society is going to be vulnerable to terror tactics. I don’t see how to change that. But I don’t like the placebos we’ve been getting. (While I was at UMass Amherst in the late 90’s there was a clause in the student handbook that no weapons, nor anything that could be used as a weapon was to be permitted in dorm rooms. And the silly fuckers still put in beds, desks, pillows for godsakes, and allowed textbooks. :dubious: