Could Las Vegas Have Been Prevented? Easy - by Douglas W. Green, EdD

Could Las Vegas Have Been Prevented? Easy – by Douglas W. Green, EdD

Vegas

About all I have heard since the Las Vegas massacre is arguments from the left and right about gun control. This is all pretty reflexive and you hear the same stuff after every mass shooting. I’m not saying that the gun control debate shouldn’t go on, but it would be nice if we could also hear a more creative analysis that takes the specifics into consideration.

This massacre would be easy to prevent without any change in our gun laws. What made this possible was the fact that the concert venue had hundreds of sniper locations above the scene. Last week I saw Paul McCartney at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. There is no way anyone could get a gun in there let alone all the guns the shooter got into his hotel room.
The lesson is, don’t set up a concert venue with so many potential sniper points above the concert that can be accessed by someone who doesn’t have to go through concert security. This isn’t difficult, but it’s up to the people who set up these concerts. I suspect the cost of setting up this outdoor concert venue with access to snipers was a lot less than the folks in Brooklyn paid for the billion-dollar Barclays Center.

Last month I attended a Bon Jovi concert down the street at Enjoy Golf Course in Endicott, NY. Like Las Vegas, it was an outdoor venue, but if you wanted to get in and take a seat in one of the high altitude skyboxes that could serve a sniper positions, you needed to get a gun in the door through the metal detectors and you wouldn’t be alone in your skybox.
It should be easy to prevent this kind of mayhem if you avoid setting up concert venues that can be targeted by people in neighboring buildings without the ability to prevent people from getting guns to a room with a view of the concert.

There are two issues here. The first relates to the two windows that the shooter broke with a hammer prior to the shooting. These are windows like many hotels have that are not designed to be opened by tenants. If they aren’t designed to be opened, there should be some way to know when they are hammered open. This would involve some expense, but if the hotel equipped the windows with sensors, the people at the front desk would know which windows have been breached immediately.
The other thing a hotel could do, if not today but probably in the future, is to use their cameras and a bit of artificial intelligence to spot someone coming in multiple times with loads of stuff. The guns and ammo that were brought into the room took several trips. He must have used some large containers that would have been easy to spot via video and/or alert people watching the lobby or the front door.

Finally, what about the people who were visiting the room on a daily basis? I think hotels should tell their staff to take a look in closets and drawers quickly as they are making the beds. If guests say they don’t want such service, a security staff member should be sent to take a quick look at the room each day. Steven Wynn says that anytime a do not disturb sign is up for 12 hours it is investigated. His housekeeping staff also looks around. See the New York Post for more on this.
I send my prayers and sympathy to all of the people impacted by the terrible event. I also think that this particular type of massacre is easy to prevent. If you can, please do so. Also, don’t attend any outdoor events with line of sight to places people can access without going through concert security.