Hacker News Reader

Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

Especially since the hotel and the hotel’s insurers ended up paying $800M:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-settlement-m...

> Jim Frantz, whose San Diego-based law firm represents another 199 victims including Romo, said Thursday's settlement is a good first step. Now MGM must strengthen the security protocol at all their facilities, he said.

>"I would assume a responsible business, after going through something like this, would institute the highest level of security," Frantz said, adding that the company should add metal detectors and Navy SEAL-type security guards. "As long as we have automatic weapons, we've got to be on high alert with all our security."

View on HN

Don't you just love how our society "fights" terrorism? Someone used something to kill someone, so let's ruin that thing for everyone, forever! Also see: air travel. I was a kid in the 90s and so I didn't fly before 9/11, but people say it was a much more enjoyable experience.

There's a world of difference between "you could assemble by some rube goldberg mechanism a bomb out of 100ml liquid containers" and actual firearms designed for easy long range killing.

As a sibling comment said, what if that shooter rented an apartment instead?

I heard they took a bus once.

They also brushed their teeth in the morning.

The fluorides industry really should take responsibility for this.

Pre 9/11 to now for air travel is the difference between day and night. It's not even close. This pretend, fake security we have today imposes so many burdens and costs on people who wish to travel. The least suspicious would easily think that the changes were meant to federalize a big portion of many people's lives.

Plus they’re not banning mobile phones or computers, and the best way to get something on fire is to shortcut a Li-ion battery - how much energy does a macbook contain.

How many laptops or phones have exploded on planes?

I think you might be mis-reading the GP's point. It's not that it's a common occurrence for laptops to spontaneously combust, but rather than an adversary could intentionally cause one (or several) to do so.

And then what? Is someone going to hijack a plane by setting their laptop battery on fire?

Suicide bombers have downed planes before. Bombs have been left in the cabin to go off on the next segment.

It’s not every terrorist's goal to walk away from their event.

Do you have a link where a terrorist exploded a battery on a plane? I've never heard of that before.

No; no one here claimed that it had been done, only that it's a potential threat.

No one’s downed an airliner with a two-part liquid bomb either, but you’re still dumping your water and soft drinks at security.

Yes. Wrap it in some inflammable scarf/coat to get it going. Or find an Android vulnerability and make several phones burn at the same time.

Anyway, it’s no more a risk than guns or water on planes since it hasn’t happened yet; but among this security circus, it’s hypocritical to ban water and not li-ion batteries.

inflammable scarf/coat

I think you mean flammable.

find an Android vulnerability and make several phones burn at the same time

I don't think that exists.

Inflammable and flammable are very close synonyms. Non-flammable is the antonym.

Non-flammable is the antonym

That doesn't matter here. Clothes might be flammable, but are not volatile enough to be labeled inflammable.

> I think you mean flammable.

Inflammable and flammable are both adjectives that mean "easily set on fire". They have slightly different etymologies. In the case of inflammable, in- means "into" and is not a negation.

I wonder if the lawyer is really that stupid or just puts on a good act to help sell this nonsense. Requiring security at the hotel is as dumb as requiring security at the high rise condos just down the street (they don’t and nobody would buy them if they did).

Definitely a sales pitch from the clueless tone, aiming outright at most extreme measures. End game would be optic nerve chip to make sure everybody is in line and not being threat... few big attacks and many people would even welcome it

There was a Black Mirror episode about a technology just like that.

> Muller says new hotel security measures are being developed, including new luggage scanners, which – unlike those at the airport, which may require an officer to open a customer's bag -- uses new technology to detect what's inside without the person even knowing it.

Great if you like paranoia. I guess I am not going to Vegas.

What the hell, how would they have resolved this if he wasn't living at the hotel? Add mandatory checks to every apartment in the area?

Guns don't kill people, hotel rooms kill people

It's not exactly for that reason. The insurance companies don't want to be liable for a future similar incident, so they are pushing future liability onto hotels that don't do a million things to guard against the last incident from recurring. Then, the hotels put these checks in place, so the insurers won't push liablity costs onto them.

I guess it could be called a decrepit spiral of associative risk management.

> As long as we have automatic weapons

But you don't, really. They're all antiques.

While you are technically correct, NEARLY automatic weapons (binary triggers) are legal in most states, here's a random video for the curious: https://youtu.be/rOkAZkk__5g

And fully automatic (but illegal) weapons are easily available in the form of Glock auto sears https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkp8p8/glock-switches-auto-s... my buddy in Baltimore heard on of these being shot in his Baltimore neighborhood a few weeks back.

I think this is a stretch. Binary triggers are tricky to use, and aren't nearly automatic. They're slightly more automatic than semi-automatic, but much, much less usable.

In terms of illegal weapons, yes. There are illegal fully automatic weapons in the US without taking your example into account. I'm talking about what's legal.

This sub-thread started on the Vegas massacre, where the shooter used a bump stock. It was legal at the time and pretty damn close to automatic.

That's fair, although I still don't think it's that close. An actually automatic weapon is the sort of thing militaries use, and witout minimising the horror that a bump stock can cause, I think they do far more.

Back to my original point, it's still wrong to say this will happen while we have automatic weapons. Why perpetuate a lie?

Several states and the Federal government found bump stock close enough to automatic that they are no longer legal. I’d guess the quote from the article is referring to the same point of view, a thin line from the perspective of the non gun-owning layman.

It's a thin line because of terrible reporting. This is destructive because until we get basic facts clear the pro-gun people are just not going to take people who say such things seriously. No more "assault-style" weapons or "fully semi-automatic" guns. Just tell the truth and break down the semantic defenses.

Naw, it’s a thin line because the whole point of bump stocks is to make a semi-automatic fire like an automatic. Even the NRA says so, this has nothing to do with the quality of reporting.

‘In the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, twelve bump stocks were found at the scene.[7] The National Rifle Association stated on October 5, 2017, "Devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations"’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_stock#Federal

> the whole point of bump stocks is to make a semi-automatic fire like an automatic

Then the lawyer should say "we should ban bump stocks" instead of perpetuating the lie that automatic weapons are prevalent in the US.

They did say that, and now we have fewer automatic-like weapons in the US. Hey I have no problem with your suggestion, I like the alternative wording you offered! I’m just pointing out that the quote was mostly reasonable at the time, I agree it’s slightly inaccurate as a shortcut summary of the situation, but I don’t think it’s as egregious as you claim. I’ll add that one quote out of context from one article does not establish a pattern. You jumped to complaining about the pattern without evidence of a pattern.

I thought it would be tedious to link to however many examples would illustrate a pattern. I think this wording is pretty commonplace though - military-style rifle, which sounds like "military grade" but is a motte and bailey for "looks military". That sort of thing.

I'm not a gun person at all, but I really despise manipulative language in media. That's why I'm harping on.

Fair enough, I hear you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com