Chez Chesler

A comment I left on The Volokh Conspiracy - The Foiled Plots: What I don't understand is the ridiculous security responses after these sort of events. Given that the danger of liquid explosives has been known for a long time ... Yup. Constantly getting ready to win the previous war. Bush was heckled for saying that the good guys were trying to think of new ways to attack us, but that's exactly what we ought to be doing. And this was one of the things I've thought of: At some points, the components of that which you need to do damage are innocent ingredients. How many different innocent, easily assembled, ingredients do you need in one place at the same time such that you could make something dangerous between when the captain turns off the fasten seatbelt light and the plane lands? The old (and probably future) rule for containers is that they had to be marked. (I know someone who had to leave shampoo or something at the checkpoint because he'd transferred it into a generic bottle instead of a bottle marked with a label proclaiming it to be something innocent.) So, using the Carnival Booth methodology we find appropriate containers that will make it through. Need to bring in a powder? Put it into gelcaps and put the gelcaps into a genuine drugstore prescription bottle issued to the actual passenger/terrorist. Need to bring in a liquid? Put it into a commercial bottle of something that looks and smells like your stuff. Now, what can you make with these ingredients? Suppose I was trying to make a zip gun. What would I need? An antenna from a portable radio for the barrel? Any sort of ball bearing for the projectile. The hardest part would be the propellant, since the dogs will sniff for that. If I remember my Star Trek, black powder is charcoal, sulphur, and saltpeter -- would I be able to get all of those aboard? (What do I want to do? Killing flight attendants is a lot less likely to get me into the cockpit anymore. How else can I bring down the plane? If all those news reports of people on the ground blinding pilots with big green lasers have any truth, maybe there's a clue there. Or maybe I should rent Die Hard 2. Or maybe I should give up on aircraft all together, and find some type of place on the ground where, in several places across the country, I and my confederates can find concentrations of vulnerable Americans, especially vulnerable American children. Have there been any places where unsophisticated people have been able to kill a lot of American children at once, that haven't been particularly hardened against people who aren't worried that they'll get suspended if they bring a gun to school or kill a security guard?)