# Should responding to a bomb threat be illegal by federal law? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 25, 2015, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819 "2015-01-25T03:12:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/41 "2015-01-25T18:40:53Z")
> [@j666](#): > > Yes, it is simple and we do understand. But we disagree. > > Even if the “lifespan” were lost - and it’s not, it’s just being spent in unplanned ways - that’s not the same as a life. Seven hundred thousand people wasting one hour does not equal one life lost. Thinking that way is very … odd. > > Even if one accepts the premise that time is ‘wasted’ when it’s spent in unplanned and economically non-productive ways, which I do not. This kind of thing is actually a big deal in computer science. I remember my teachers telling people who’s programs took too long to start" If a billion people use this, you could save X lives by shortening your load time" ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/42 "2015-01-25T19:45:08Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Every single person who said “this is stupid” is stupid. (at least about this) Don’t insult other members here, it’s against the rules. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/43 "2015-01-25T19:49:02Z")
So…if your sister is getting married, all the Grans, Aunties, Moms and cousins go to the market to buy wedding goods and…BOOM! Bomb kills all of them. And then you learn Police had a hours warning, but did nothing. Because wasting time evacuating the market is just not worth the lives that would have been saved. Nobody likes having their time wasted, after all. You gonna be okay with that? Does that cost saving still seem worth the lives of half your family? Why not refuse to send out fire trucks, until we can smell the smoke? ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/44 "2015-01-25T20:17:31Z")
There’s an ep of Airport Miami (or whatever its called) and the teaser for one of the episodes involves someone calling in a bomb threat and saying “There are 200 pounds of C4 distributed throughout the airport”…I haven’t seen the episode and I’m sure they evacuated the airport, but…REALLY? 200 POUNDS of C4 throughout the airport? How the hell would someone sneak 200 pounds of C4 into an airport and distribute it throughout? ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/45 "2015-01-25T23:40:15Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > How the hell would someone sneak 200 pounds of C4 into an airport and distribute it throughout? It was a plot device for another type of threat, in a novel, but I don’t think it would be that hard , if the C4 was packed into those hand sanitizer dispensers. Declan ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/46 "2015-01-26T01:40:58Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > I’m amused at the responses. The thing is, we live in objective reality. In that reality, the truth about things isn’t subject to popular vote. Every single person who said “this is stupid” is stupid. (at least about this) > > It’s simple reasoning that an elementary schooler can understand. > > There are tens of thousands of bomb threats made annually in the United States. I’m not able to find a total, but I read an article mentioning that just 1 school has received 145 in a single string of threats. > > There’s a handful of actual terrorist bombings made per year in the United States. > > The actual live bombings where a threat was made in advance, in the United States, in the last decade? Zero. The actual bombings where a useful threat was made in advance in all of human history? Probably a very small number. > > Making a threat defeats the whole purpose of committing a bombing. And committing an actual bombing obviates the need for a threat. > > So no, it’s not at all comparable to a fire alarm. It’s more like a sensor that **always** goes off when it’s a false alarm, and **almost never** goes off when it’s the real thing. Okay, I’m going to answer this seriously. If the motive of a person who calls in a bomb threat is to disrupt some location then, yes, responding to the threat and evacuating the building is giving him what he wants. And, as you point out, by giving him what he wants due to just a bomb threat, it eliminates the need for the person to plant an actual bomb. Now suppose, as a hypothetical, we stop responding to bomb threats. What will this person do now? Will he just abandon his anti-social behavior? No, probably not. But now that we’ve eliminated the possibility for him to disrupt some location via a empty threat, he’ll have to commit an actual act. If he wants to get any effect now, he’ll have to set off an actual bomb or start a fire or release tear gas inside the building. Obviously, this a much worse situation then what we have now. As long as people are going to be anti-social, society is better off channeling their behavior towards harmless threats rather than harmful acts. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/47 "2015-01-26T01:43:55Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > There’s an ep of Airport Miami (or whatever its called) and the teaser for one of the episodes involves someone calling in a bomb threat and saying “There are 200 pounds of C4 distributed throughout the airport”…I haven’t seen the episode and I’m sure they evacuated the airport, but…REALLY? 200 POUNDS of C4 throughout the airport? How the hell would someone sneak 200 pounds of C4 into an airport and distribute it throughout? Honestly, I wouldn’t think it would be that difficult. An airport is one of the places where people carrying around luggage is normal. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/48 "2015-01-26T02:16:39Z")
> [@Declan](#): > > It was a plot device for another type of threat, in a novel, but I don’t think it would be that hard , if the C4 was packed into those hand sanitizer dispensers. > > Declan “Now, give us fifty million or we’ll detonate…wait. BOB, did you attach detonators to the C4? Goddamnit. I’ll call you back.” ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/49 "2015-01-26T03:06:13Z")
Has anyone ever actually backed up a bomb threat? If not, the OP sounds a lot smarter than all the experts here. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/50 "2015-01-26T03:59:33Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > This kind of thing is actually a big deal in computer science. I remember my teachers telling people who’s programs took too long to start" If a billion people use this, you could save X lives by shortening your load time" Oh, good. Economists aren’t the only ones that think aggregates and averages are real. Both are wrong. Honestly, I don’t like to throw ugly words around lightly, by that is some of the most stupid reasoning I have ever heard. > [@Stringbean](#): > > Has anyone ever actually backed up a bomb threat? > > If not, the OP sounds a lot smarter than all the experts here. Yes. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/51 "2015-01-26T04:13:14Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Has anyone ever actually backed up a bomb threat? . . . Back in the 80s, the IRA bombings in England would sometimes come with a coded warning, so the police would know it wasn’t just some random jerk calling in a bluff. However, the IRA sometimes used these codes just to bluff, so it worked both ways. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/52 "2015-01-26T04:56:19Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Has anyone ever actually backed up a bomb threat? > > If not, the OP sounds a lot smarter than all the experts here. Maybe you should go back and reread the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/53 "2015-01-26T04:59:21Z")
> [@White SIFL](#): > > Maybe you should go back and reread the OP. He said later in the thread: “The actual live bombings where a threat was made in advance, in the United States, in the last decade? Zero.” If that is so, doesn’t it seem rather odd that we flip our shit like kids in a candy store over an essentially negligible threat? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/54 "2015-01-26T05:26:30Z")
“Kids in a candy store?” Kids like candy stores. No one likes to receive a bomb threat. Weird metaphor. And…how is evacuating the site “flipping our shit?” Finally, how would banning the evacuation of the site make any sense at all? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/55 "2015-01-26T05:43:41Z")
I think bomb threats should still lead to evacuations, but the bomb-hoaxers should be required to pay absolutely immense fines and financial compensation, and other penalties as well. Perhaps 100 hours of community service for every person that was evacuated. If a bomb-threat-hoax causes 1,000 people to be evacuated, and the person making the bomb threat is required to perform 100,000 hours of community service as a penalty, that would sure be a deterrent. ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/56 "2015-01-26T05:59:39Z")
> [@Inna\_Minnit](#): > > Sleeper cell getting a little boring there, Habeeb? Sorry, I didn’t see this before…but making insinuations like this should be avoided too. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/57 "2015-01-26T06:02:44Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I think bomb threats should still lead to evacuations, but the bomb-hoaxers should be required to pay absolutely immense fines and financial compensation, and other penalties as well. Perhaps 100 hours of community service for every person that was evacuated. > If a bomb-threat-hoax causes 1,000 people to be evacuated, and the person making the bomb threat is required to perform 100,000 hours of community service as a penalty, that would sure be a deterrent. Also ‘cruel and unusual punishment’. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/58 "2015-01-26T06:16:42Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > “Kids in a candy store?” Kids like candy stores. No one likes to receive a bomb threat. Weird metaphor. Kids become screaming, irrational loons, much as grown adults do when a bomb threat is made. > [@Trinopus](#): > > And…how is evacuating the site “flipping our shit?” Because it disrupts the activity of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. > [@Trinopus](#): > > Finally, how would banning the evacuation of the site make any sense at all? Because, as evidenced by a complete lack of actual follow-through, bomb threats are made with the explicit purpose of disrupting peoples’ lives to watch them “flip their shit.” Stop reacting to the child who cries wolf, and the child will stop crying wolf. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/59 "2015-01-26T07:03:04Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Kids become screaming, irrational loons, much as grown adults do when a bomb threat is made. Cite, please? When public buildings are evacuated, the process is usually orderly, without screaming. I think you’re as wrong here as in all your other reasoning. > [@](#): > > Because it disrupts the activity of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. You didn’t answer the question: how is evacuating a building “flipping our shit?” > [@](#): > > Because, as evidenced by a complete lack of actual follow-through, bomb threats are made with the explicit purpose of disrupting peoples’ lives to watch them “flip their shit.” Stop reacting to the child who cries wolf, and the child will stop crying wolf. This might be a decent reason for people to choose not to evacuate in the case of a threat, although that’s dangerous reasoning. That lump in your breast might be benign…but that isn’t the way intelligent people gamble. But you haven’t addressed why people should be prevented by law from evacuating a building when a threat has been received. No one has; the idea is inane. If a threat were received, and no action were taken…and the bomb was real…the harm done is vastly more than the harm done from a dry-run evacuation. At very best, you might have a case for allowing people to choose, for themselves, whether or not to leave the area. You have zero case for citing people with civil or criminal penalties if they choose to leave the area. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819/60 "2015-01-26T07:11:04Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Because, as evidenced by a complete lack of actual follow-through, bomb threats are made with the explicit purpose of disrupting peoples’ lives to watch them “flip their shit.” Stop reacting to the child who cries wolf, and the child will stop crying wolf. Or, as I noted before, if people stop reacting to bomb threats, criminals might use actual bombs to achieve the disruption they want. Do you feel replacing bomb threats with bombs would be an improvement? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-responding-to-a-bomb-threat-be-illegal-by-federal-law/710819.md?page=4)