I didn’t mean to imply that museums are armed fortresses invulnerable to every eventuality. I was just trying to make the point to the OP that museums are much better protected than he assumed, and that he and his putative group of thugs couldn’t just stroll in and intimidate the “unarmed older men and women or young girls plus a few really skinny artsy types” he spoke of so disparagingly.
And even in your scenario, the trick for your six guys would to be get *into *the museum with their automatic weapons in the first place. Though it certainly isn’t impossible, it would probably be more difficult than you anticipate. And considering what others have said here about the value of stolen art in the marketplace, more trouble than it is worth.
Most unarmed “casual” security types aren’t trained to physically stop anyone who’s posing a serious threat; they simply call the cops. In fact they’d probably be on their way to the museum before the 10 burly tough guys wearing masks and caryying guns even got past the cashier at the front booth when they try to get in without paying. Having 25 cops waiting for you at the exits after being called 5 times as soon as you first showed up really throws a monkley wrench into most plans.
Yeah, I’d suggest substituting 10 burly masked men toting AK-47s with perhaps baseball caps, fake mustache and 9mm pistols concealed in lightweight jackets.
Something along those lines could probably get to the art, and perhaps force hold open a line of exits heading to the door without getting the people called immediately.
As an aside, I’d HATE to see the reaction of your insurance company to the idea of doors that lock closed with museum patrons inside. Serious fire hazard, that.
This being said, if your goal was just overpowering museum security and kidnapping most of the museum security staff… might be easier to do…
Also remember most (but not all) art will be somewhat old. You just can’t bust in and grab a whole bunch of pictures. One scratch on a painting can turn it from a one million dollar painting to half it’s value or less.
The big money in art is not theft but forgery. I’ve read a couple of books about it and it’s incredible because some techniques are highly sophisticated. That coupled with the fact a lot of art is relatively new. In otherwords if you try to forge a Da Vinci it’s hard to get the same materials he used. But if you’re forging a painter from the 60s it’d be a lot easier.
What’s really interesting some of the forgery artists actually have been able to turn legit and their own paintings have value.
Presumably they wouldn’t lock the exits if there were a fire in the building; that would be dooming potentially hundreds of visitors to a fiery death. So if you’re intent on stealing artwork, why not pull the fire alarm to make your getaway?
I’m not an expert in museum security. But if I were placed in charge of such, I’d probably put hidden detectors in doorways and miniature tags on the artworks that could be easily carried away so it would set off alarms if somebody tried to walk away with something.
Well, Little Nemo, you just became the first person suggesting that we create an RFID tag for the Mona Lisa…
On edit:
Wait, does that mean you could like… ring it up on the counter at Wal-Mart?
I need to see how the whole RFID thing works…