Should movie theaters have metal detectors?

[Yavin4]

Sadly, I'm starting to think so.

[SummerSnow]

1. yes they should. Maybe even supermarkets too

[JustAnotherGen]

3. Wouldn't they have to move all of the carts inside?

Not being snarky here - thinking/typing out loud.

Because I'm feeling like I'm not going to sit in a movie theater anymore.

Just like I won't go in a mall on a busy day.

Or a bank at noon.

[SummerSnow]

13. Yesterday my husband an I decided we'll wait for movies to come out on video or Netflix

[pipoman]

17. What about not going outside when it's raining?

Since you are about 10 times more likely to be struck by lightning than for any of those activities to result in your death...

[JustAnotherGen]

21. Well that was rude -

Back off.

Too nice?

Back the fuck off.

I'll take the hide - because you WON'T get a hide . . .

but it sure felt good to type it.

It's about time people started fighting back against the rude snark at DU -


It starts with me. I will take that hide with pride!

[pipoman]

25. How about a reality check?

Wouldn't want you to be in an actual danger. How is it rude to point out a fact? When facts are rude and verboten where will we be? Living in a fantasy world, that's where...

Oh, and nobody will hide that, nor should they...

[JustAnotherGen]

26. Well I'm not a church mouse

I HAVE a life -

and my husband is in midtown Manhattan this morning a block from where yet another shooting occurred.

It's easy for the church mice who don't have lives to be smug superiors -

But the people that get out and about - it's not that easy.

Add in the fact that my cousin was shot in the face with a gun and died on April 13, 1991 -

And you will find -

Not one fuck to give about thugs with guns, what is reasonable and what is not.

You obviously have this sweet little life in this cute little corner of the world with daisies and shamrocks or you wouldn't speak about reality.

Hey - out here in the REAL world - where we HAVE lives - this is our reality.

Now back the fuck off.

[pipoman]

27. And you believe not going to malls and the movies

Is somehow a wise precaution? You can lock yourself in your basement and order everything from amazon and delivery businesses....or you can live your life, hope for the best, and wnjoy yourself. Crazy peope who wish to kill people are a rare reality in the real world.

[jberryhill]

43. Not the basement

Radon in basements kills vastly more people than being shot in a movie theater.

[pipoman]

35. I just heard on the local news

22 deaths and "many more injured" so far this year in the US due to lightning..

[phylny]

38. There's nothing you can do about lightning except take precautions,

as it's a naturally-occurring phenomenon, but gun violence is preventable.

I make it a habit to stay indoors the minute I hear thunder, when I see a storm on radar, or when my cell phone alerts me to storms.

Getting back to the gun issue, it's ridiculous that we have to live with this violence.

[pipoman]

42. It is equally ridiculous to believe this is a "gun issue"

To the exclusion of the underlying "violence" issue. Then there is the fact that a couple dozen deaths annually are pinpointed by the media and agenda drivers, the minutia of which are systematically discected to locate a magic bullet (no pun intended) to stop all similar acts. These chosen few are almost always white people being victimized by people who are nuts. The 6k gang related deaths annually are forgotten while the tragic yet uncommon deaths of 30 people annually are the concern.

No, I'm convinced a lot of the gun control movement aren't interested in ending violence at all, they are interested in donations from good but misguided public when the next tragedy occurs.

A great example is that NICS failed in the church shooting yet no gun control groups are petitioning for NICS total enforcement....they don't give a shit that 90% of weapons wrongly transferred each year are never even attempted to be picked up, or that of the tens of thousands of criminals and mental cases who lie and are actively trying to buy guns less than 1% are even investigated....no, their only interest is the impossible which is good fund raising fodder for the true believers.

The bottom line is that going to malls and movie theaters is near the bottom of the danger scale and letting anecdotal stories of statistically insignificant occurrences scare you from living life is silliness.

[northoftheborder]

2. Yes.

Took granddaughter to movie yesterday. I looked to see where the exits were - all at the front. First time I had even thought about it, and felt uneasy.

[jberryhill]

8. Did you drive there?

[Nye Bevan]

11. People totally worry about the wrong things. (nt)

[Positrons]

4. Silly...

[tblue37]

5. Guns are allowed almost everywhere these days, and when a private company

tries to restrict them, as some stores and restaurants have done, they get boycotted and protested by heavily armed 2nd Amendment absolutists.

I fear we might see several more copycat theater shootings before that version of the public gun massacre is replaced by another one. We've had mall massacres, school massacres, and fast food massacres followed by copycat versions of each. After two theater shootings, I fear that will become a "thing" for some angry shooter looking to make a name for himself by killing a lot of innocent strangers.

[hlthe2b]

6. shopping malls too... and most everywhere large numbers of people gather--sadly that's

the state of a country where guns are so very out of control.

[jberryhill]

7. Why?

"According to preliminary estimates, roughly 1.26 billion consumers purchased cinema tickets between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-2014-moviegoing-hits-760766

Obviously that's not "1.26 billion consumers" but 1.26 billion tickets sold (people who go to movies go more than once a year).

So, you are talking about something like 14 deaths out of 1.26 billion movie admissions.

That's just absurd.

Motor vehicle deaths will clock in at around 30,000 this year.

[Nye Bevan]

9. Of course not.

What if the next shootings are on crowded Main Streets? Would you be arguing that anyone entering a downtown street should go through a metal detector?

[wheniwasincongress]

10. And schools

and workplaces

and stores

and churches

and gyms

and parks

and and and...


Let's just bend over backwards to serve the gun humpers.

[phylny]

39. Yes! Heaven forbid people who own guns are inconvenienced.

The rest of us have no rights, so we need to shut up, bend over, and take it.

[wheniwasincongress]

12. Will it stop someone with bad intentions?

Will it prevent the shooter from pulling his gun out at the metal detector checkpoint, and shooting the theatre employee and continuing inside to the theatre seats?

[jberryhill]

24. Of course not

[Eleanors38]

14. Would this stop a soda bottle bomb?

[DetlefK]

15. Then it will be knives made from plastic or glass. Guns aren't the problem per se.

The problem is that the US has an unhealthy, obsessive relationship with guns and violence.

[truebrit71]

16. Not just no, but FUCK no....

You are more likely to be bitten by a grizzly bear and a polar bear on the same day and then struck by lightning, twice, than you are to die at a movie theatre for fucks sake...

[BlueJazz]

18. NO. For this reason >

[HoustonDave]

46. Glock article

You are aware that he was referring to a Glock (the most popular police gun in the US nowadays, and which is far from all-plastic) and that the article in question is over 20 years old? It was pre-production speculation.

[drm604]

19. How would that work?

You'd have to have it manned by one or more armed guards, otherwise what's the point. Then, if you do have a confrontation, it will be at the theater entrance rather than in the theater itself.

There are often long lines of people at theater entrances. In fact, with everyone going through a metal detector, you're more likely to have long lines. Shooters will simply target those people, outside of the theater, rather than inside.

[TBF]

20. I love blame the victim solutions ...

How about we look at this from a "new" angle - like where the violence comes from. Your OP is the same as telling women they shouldn't go outside because they might get raped.

[catnhatnh]

22. No-because there is a problem with metal detectors...

...to do any good at all they have to be manned by armed guards ready and trained to confront an armed aggressor (think:prepared to kill). Think about a day where you faced multiple airport type screenings every day-boy, doesn't that just scream freedom?

Because of course it could never be JUST movie theaters. Imagine...a screening at your office building and a second after lunch (actually your third-lunch was at a hotel downtown). Your wife needs milk and eggs so you screen at the grocery store. Now you need to see your son's basketball game and screen again. On the way home you stop to pick your daughter at choir practice,but it's running late so you screen again to see what the holdup is.

Well it's been a long day but now you're heading home. Won't it be fun when your wife wants to discuss moving to a gated community-after all, you will need to decide screening or non-screening...

[HoustonDave]

47. metal joints

not to mention all the folks blown away because they had joint replacements!
BEEEP BEEP BEEP Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Sorry, Pastor, forgot about that knee operation... ah well, that movie sucks anyway"

[GummyBearz]

23. Yes, and the TSA's jurisdiction should be expanded so they can operate the metal detectors.

Grocery stores, malls, etc would also be included as a start. Eventually we need a chip implanted in every person in this country that sends feedback to a central computer at the NSA regarding our current state of mind and what we are thinking. We then will not have anything to be afraid of.

[deathrind]

28. Unfortunately yes.

....that or stop going to movies or doing business with any business that allows weapons in their stores or property. Once the bottom line starts taking a hit they will change their policy. The gun culture we live in is not leaving much of a choice. The self serving nature of this issue is really amazing, there are not many problems where the general answer to the problem is more of the same problem.

[sarisataka]

33. The theater did not

Allow weapons inside...

[MADem]

29. Lot's of businesses in Israel have 'em....

I hate a State of Seige lifestyle, but maybe that's the future...?

Everyone will start staying home and getting their entertainment on bigger and bigger home screens....

[Logical]

30. Wow, please tell me you are not serious. Jesus. Wtf. Nt

[onenote]

31. It's probably going to happen

particularly if movie theaters feel like they could be exposed to liability for not having done so. The reality, and I don't like it, is that metal detectors are becoming a part of daily life. "Soft" targets, where a lot of people are congregated, such as sporting events, increasingly use them as a security measure, and movie theaters, concert halls, etc. are likely to be next.

As pointed out, the out of 1.26 billion movie admissions, there were 14 deaths in the past 12 months -- 1 per every 90 million admissions. (By way of comparison, there is a bit more than 1 fatality per 100 million miles traveled).But the numbers have little to do with why metal detectors probably will be deployed.

[Oneironaut]

32. No. One shooting doesn't mean we need a police state.

We could have cops at every corner, every venue, always watching. What would that accomplish?

The arguments were used after 9/11 too, that, since terrorists are determined to strike at any time, we need to turn into a police state with soldiers on every corner of the street. It's a gross overreaction to a world that is always going to be unsafe.

I don't know what metal detectors would accomplish other than continuing the race towards a police state and a perpetual state of panic.

[phylny]

40. One shooting. n/t

[Liberal Veteran]

34. There are something like 40000 theater screens operating in the US.

At 4 to 5 showings per screen per day, 365 days a year, and about 7 years since the Dark Knight shootings, you have about 1 in 511,000,000 chance of attending a show with a mass shooting.

That isn't to make light of the situation, I just wanted to add perspective.

If we were going to do that, we might as put metal detectors in every public venue including restaurants, stores, and everywhere else.

It might be a boon for the companies that make detectors, but I refuse to live in that kind of fear all the time.

[Recursion]

45. You're basically describing India, btw

But, yeah, mass shootings are less of a threat than furniture accidents, and I don't think we need to expend a whole lot of energy worrying about them.

[beevul]

36. Not just movie theaters.

In my view, any venue that makes the decision to be 'gun free', should be burdened with the requirement to make reasonable efforts to ensure that the venue actually IS 'gun free'.

[spanone]

37. where does it end? we can't metal detect everything.

[csziggy]

41. Great - another place where I'd have to argue with guards

About my artificial knees. I've gotten the card from my doctor, but many places don't accept those as proof I don't have some kind of weapon strapped to my legs. Even pulling up my pants legs to show them the scars can be insufficient proof.

I refuse to fly any longer and have not done so since the appalling service we got on a domestic flight in 1990. Since 2001 I haven't even considered the possibility of taking an air plane anywhere and getting artificial knees reduced the slim chance to none after reading how people with artificial joints and handicaps are abused by TSA.

In two weeks I have to report for jury duty - that will be the first time I will be forced to pass through a metal detector since my operations. Other times, it was optional and I could just elect to not attend events in places with the detectors.

[Recursion]

44. They do in India. Shopping malls, too.

I imagine Americans would get used to it, though it's kind of absurd and a response to something that isn't a real danger statistically.

On the other hand, I've spent years calling for more government funding of theater, and I guess security theater counts.

[Liberal_in_LA]

48. that requires security to search people when the detector pings. too much trouble for a business

[NightWatcher]

49. How bout we go after the people who shouldn't have "metal" to begin with

Let's keep the troublesome metal out of the hands of people who shouldn't be armed.