Thursday, August 06, 2009

This is a Job for Chief Inspector Dreyfus!

[W]hen authorities finally tracked down the purported weapon that caused the scare, they discovered a cigarette lighter that looks like a gun. [More]


[Via Ed M]

4 comments:

Jon Bibeau said...

Dammit, we need more cigarette lighter restrictions put in place!

But in all seriousness this is a wonderful article that only shows you how useless such comprehensive security measures are. According to the article, the x-ray found the lighter, but it was still passed through.

Next you will see call to ban anything that remotely looks like a firearm. Forgetting that lack of common sense seems to have been the problem here.

-Jon
www.cmdrfenix.org

Sean said...

Run, run away!

Kent McManigal said...

What would an aluminum foil silhouette of a gun look like to those X-ray machines?

Anonymous said...

John Dillinger supposedly escaped jail because of a wooden carving that resembled a gun. Bar soap has also been used for the same purpose. That would not be detected by a metal detector of be readily visible on an X-ray machine. A red or blue plastic dummy weapon used for training which was painted black could also deceive.

The objective is not to kill or wound someone. The objective is to change the behavior of someone because of the threat of violence presented by the appearance of a weapon. That tactic does not work when people are carrying real weapons to defend themselves and counter the threat.