Question about bomb threats

[BirdinHand]

You're missing the point. There's no indication that a single one of those cases of an actual bomb being found was preceded by a verbal threat.

See prior post.

Read the linked article.

You are wrong. The article clearly addresses this - including the number of “hoax devices” also found.

 

[Noodlegawd]

See prior post.

Read the linked article.

You are wrong. The article clearly addresses this - including the number of “hoax devices” also found.

No it doesn't. Quote it if you contend otherwise. A hoax device is not a "bomb threat."

 

[BirdinHand]

No it doesn't. Quote it if you contend otherwise. A hoax device is not a "bomb threat."

I can’t with this.


If your position is that bomb threats shouldn’t be taken seriously because we haven’t seen a school blow up recently…I’m not even sure what to say.


That’s some really screwed up debating and I’m glad you aren’t in charge of making these determinations.

 

[Noodlegawd]

I can’t with this.


If your position is that bomb threats shouldn’t be taken seriously because we haven’t seen a school blow up recently…I’m not even sure what to say.


That’s some really screwed up debating and I’m glad you aren’t in charge of making these determinations.

No, what's really screwed up is that you can't understand the very simple point being made. You're right. You "can't with this," just not for the reason you think.

 

[BirdinHand]

No, what's really screwed up is that you can't understand the very simple point being made. You're right. You "can't with this," just not for the reason you think.

The point that you’re ok with playing Russian Roulette with people’s lives because you’re too lazy to read?

You realize the mere act of making a bomb threat is a federal crime, right?

 

[Noodlegawd]

The point that you’re ok with playing Russian Roulette with people’s lives because you’re too lazy to read?

You're continuing to miss the point. Is that on purpose, because of inability, or because you're too lazy to read my comments?

You realize the mere act of making a bomb threat is a federal crime, right?

That has nothing to do with my point. We can investigate bomb threats as crimes without shutting everything down every time someone makes one.

 

[BirdinHand]

You're continuing to miss the point. Is that on purpose, because of inability, or because you're too lazy to read my comments?



That has nothing to do with my point. We can investigate bomb threats as crimes without shutting everything down every time someone makes one.

As I stated, I'm glad you are not the one making that determination.

School XYZ receives a bomb threat. There are 300 students in the building. You remove the students from the building and ensure it is not a credible threat.


You don't say "eh, this isn't real" and then god forbid something blows up.


These are circumstances where making the WRONG call can wind up with innocent people dead. You err on the side of caution and treat EVERY threat as potentially credible. Because the risks of doing otherwise are TOO HIGH.

Just like you ALWAYS treat EVERY gun as loaded until you know for sure that it is not and confirm that it is not.

To do otherwise is flat-out negligent.


Your school principal, your hospital administrator, your school teacher, etc....are NOT qualified to determine whether or not a threat is real. They must follow their safety and security protocols. And then law enforcement officials investigate a threat and if necessary check a building, a backpack, etc. to confirm safety.

These are SAFETY measures that are in place for a reason. Just like if you are around guns, you are taught to always treat a gun as loaded. Safety.

Mistakes in these sort of circumstances wind up with people dead. It is ALWAYS better to err on the side of caution.

 

[Noodlegawd]

These are circumstances where making the WRONG call can wind up with innocent people dead. You err on the side of caution and treat EVERY threat as potentially credible. Because the risks of doing otherwise are TOO HIGH.

This is an assertion that requires proof. If, in the entire history of the United States, there have been thousands of bomb threats and not a single one of them turned out to involve an actual bomb, your assertion would be false. So far, no one has identified a single such incident and so the risk is essentially zero as far as we know. It actually defies logic to assume that a bomb threat would be tied to an actual bomb, because it's hard to imagine that anyone who actually wanted to bomb a place would warn the potential victims in advance.

The cost-to-safety tradeoff will become even worse as more and more loonies (or people who are doing it deliberately to disrupt our lives) phone in phony bomb threats.

You claim that the "risk is too high," but I'm sure you don't apply that same logic to many other much greater risks. You are probably around a million times more likely to die of a head injury in a car accident than by a bombing that was preceded by a phoned-in threat. But do you make your kids wear a crash helmet every time you drive them anywhere? Isn't it "flat-out-negligent" not to?

 

[zincwarrior]

I’ll go out on a limb and say if someone went through the risk of plating a bomb they wouldn’t get cold feet at the last second and call in a threat. Seems counterproductive relative to their sick cause.

It was standard practice for the IRA.

The Weathermen would occasionally issue warnings before bombing government buildings.

Weather Underground - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[zincwarrior]

You claim that the "risk is too high," but I'm sure you don't apply that same logic to many other much greater risks.

Low risk but high opportunity cost.

 

[Anagram]

This is an assertion that requires proof. If, in the entire history of the United States, there have been thousands of bomb threats and not a single one of them turned out to involve an actual bomb, your assertion would be false. So far, no one has identified a single such incident and so the risk is essentially zero as far as we know. It actually defies logic to assume that a bomb threat would be tied to an actual bomb, because it's hard to imagine that anyone who actually wanted to bomb a place would warn the potential victims in advance.

The cost-to-safety tradeoff will become even worse as more and more loonies (or people who are doing it deliberately to disrupt our lives) phone in phony bomb threats.

You claim that the "risk is too high," but I'm sure you don't apply that same logic to many other much greater risks. You are probably around a million times more likely to die of a head injury in a car accident than by a bombing that was preceded by a phoned-in threat. But do you make your kids wear a crash helmet every time you drive them anywhere? Isn't it "flat-out-negligent" not to?

Setting aside the question of whether it has happened in the past or not, if it became standard practice to ignore bomb threats entirely, you can almost guarantee some bombers will start sending in threats of their bombs because their goals are to cause as much pain and outrage as possible.

And at that point you return to the status quo where it is insane to ignore the threats.

Yes, this will result in some disruption in our society for false threats. But in the grand scheme, this is a really small disruption. And we can minimize it by applying sufficiently harsh penalties for faking threats.

 

[Lovebug]

Serious question (and yes, I googled it): Has a bomb threat actually ever been carried out in the US? By that I mean that someone made a bomb threat, and then actually bombed something causing harm to people.

Warning about the Oklahoma city bombing would have been nice

If not, why do we take these threats seriously? If we keep shutting things down every time someone picks up the phone and says he'll bomb the place, it occurs to me that this would be an easy way for an organization to cripple our economy.

It's a crazy world we live in, ain't it?
I would like to think that a hospital or school would take measures to keep everyone safe.
Could you live with the guilt having ignored a warning resulting in mass casualties?

 

[BirdinHand]

This is an assertion that requires proof. If, in the entire history of the United States, there have been thousands of bomb threats and not a single one of them turned out to involve an actual bomb, your assertion would be false. So far, no one has identified a single such incident and so the risk is essentially zero as far as we know. It actually defies logic to assume that a bomb threat would be tied to an actual bomb, because it's hard to imagine that anyone who actually wanted to bomb a place would warn the potential victims in advance.

The cost-to-safety tradeoff will become even worse as more and more loonies (or people who are doing it deliberately to disrupt our lives) phone in phony bomb threats.

You claim that the "risk is too high," but I'm sure you don't apply that same logic to many other much greater risks. You are probably around a million times more likely to die of a head injury in a car accident than by a bombing that was preceded by a phoned-in threat. But do you make your kids wear a crash helmet every time you drive them anywhere? Isn't it "flat-out-negligent" not to?

Where do you get the idea that there have never been bombs?

Here are bombs at schools:

Man arrested for allegedly placing pipe bombs at South Sacramento elementary school

Gustavo Aguilar is accused of placing pipe bombs at Ethel I. Baker Elementary School on two separate occasions in March.

www.abc10.com

3:12 p.m.: Pipe bomb found at Highland High School

A pipe bomb was discovered at Highland High School Friday afternoon by construction workers, according to Anderson Police Department Detective Joel Sandefur. A faculty member alerted the construction workers who

www.heraldbulletin.com

Heck, even the Columbine shooters had bombs on them:

Colorado News and Denver News: The Denver Post

extras.denverpost.com

Here are bomb threats and bombs:

People v. Quinonez, No. H032002 | Casetext Search + Citator

Read People v. Quinonez, No. H032002, see flags on bad law, and search Casetext’s comprehensive legal database

casetext.com

Since you might not READ the attached, I'll summarize: Defendents planted pipe bombs at schools - called in a bomb threat - then when police were busy dealing with THAT...they went and robbed somewhere else at gunpoint. Convicted and sent to prison.


The report I provided isn't packed with fabricated instances. Go see Google and do some searching. There have been bombs when there have been threats. Now I've done your homework for you. YES, there have been threats AND bombs. And yes...there have been bombs when there have NOT been threats but when observant civilians abided the "see something, say something" about suspicious objects, packages, etc.

 

[Noodlegawd]

Where do you get the idea that there have never been bombs?

Where did you get the idea that I ever got the idea there have never been bombs?

Here are bombs at schools:

Man arrested for allegedly placing pipe bombs at South Sacramento elementary school

Gustavo Aguilar is accused of placing pipe bombs at Ethel I. Baker Elementary School on two separate occasions in March.

www.abc10.com

3:12 p.m.: Pipe bomb found at Highland High School

A pipe bomb was discovered at Highland High School Friday afternoon by construction workers, according to Anderson Police Department Detective Joel Sandefur. A faculty member alerted the construction workers who

www.heraldbulletin.com

Heck, even the Columbine shooters had bombs on them:

Colorado News and Denver News: The Denver Post

extras.denverpost.com

Here are bomb threats and bombs:

People v. Quinonez, No. H032002 | Casetext Search + Citator

Read People v. Quinonez, No. H032002, see flags on bad law, and search Casetext’s comprehensive legal database

casetext.com

Since you might not READ the attached, I'll summarize: Defendents planted pipe bombs at schools - called in a bomb threat - then when police were busy dealing with THAT...they went and robbed somewhere else at gunpoint. Convicted and sent to prison.


The report I provided isn't packed with fabricated instances. Go see Google and do some searching. There have been bombs when there have been threats. Now I've done your homework for you. YES, there have been threats AND bombs. And yes...there have been bombs when there have NOT been threats but when observant civilians abided the "see something, say something" about suspicious objects, packages, etc.

So after all that, you finally identified a single instance, from more than 2 decades ago, where there was both a bomb threat and an actual bomb. In that case, however, there was obviously no intention of setting off the bomb (your link indicates it was doubtful there was even a WAY to do that). What's more, they did it as a distraction to commit a robbery, not to actually bomb anything, which was pretty much my entire point.

 

[Noodlegawd]

Setting aside the question of whether it has happened in the past or not, if it became standard practice to ignore bomb threats entirely, you can almost guarantee some bombers will start sending in threats of their bombs because their goals are to cause as much pain and outrage as possible.

And at that point you return to the status quo where it is insane to ignore the threats.

Yes, this will result in some disruption in our society for false threats. But in the grand scheme, this is a really small disruption. And we can minimize it by applying sufficiently harsh penalties for faking threats.

It may be a small disruption now, because there are relatively few bomb threats. At some point it could easily become a huge disruption.

 

[EnchantedMuggle]

I don't see any indication in that article that he made threats. Seems like he just planted bombs.

OMG lists of the threats he mailed are literally all over the article. The entire thing. With the letters' contents quoted.

And right near the beginning the article sums up his MO:

Metesky often placed warning calls to the buildings where he had planted bombs, but would not specify the bomb's exact location. He wrote to newspapers warning that he planned to plant more. Some bombs came with notes, but the note never revealed a motive, or a reason for choosing that particular location.[8][10]

 

[Noodlegawd]

OMG lists of the threats he mailed are literally all over the article. The entire thing. With the letters' contents quoted.

And right near the beginning the article sums up his MO:

Ok, my bad. So we have one non-bombing incident from 23 years ago, and one guy from around 70 years ago who planted tons of bombs, many of which went off but killing no one, and who phoned in warnings about a few of them.

 

[zincwarrior]

Ok, my bad. So we have one non-bombing incident from 23 years ago, and one guy from around 70 years ago who planted tons of bombs, many of which went off but killing no one, and who phoned in warnings about a few of them.

I don't believe there is a lot of support for your argument on this thread.

 

[Juggernaut74]

Sometimes I have thoughts in my head that, upon reflection, I decide that they’re stupid and best left not spoken aloud.

It’s too bad not everyone has the ability to do that.

 

[Noodlegawd]

I don't believe there is a lot of support for your argument on this thread.

I wasn't making an argument. I asked a question and posed a hypothetical, and then the thread was derailed for most of the time by someone saying effectively, "derrrrrrr....but there have been bombings."

 

[Noodlegawd]

Sometimes I have thoughts in my head that, upon reflection, I decide that they’re stupid and best left not spoken aloud.

It’s too bad not everyone has the ability to do that.

You should have listened to yourself this time.