So, you're ascribing blinding logic and intelligence to suicide bombers? C'mon, wfrazerjr, you know better than that. You don't have to be sane to be logical, intelligent, or a very good and patient planner -- as the 9/11 suicide bombers and the people behind them proved. What does a suicide bomber want? To do the most possible damage: deaths, infrastructure destroyed, striking fear into the hearts, etc. It's not the kind of attack that can be successfully set up and carried out on a whim: it takes a lot of planning, and, gosh, a certain amount of dedication, and the person doing it is going to want to do maximum damage. If that's their goal, there are better places than a football stadium, no matter how crowded it is, and there are certainly better places in the football stadium than in the middle of the field. Consider also the nature of the device. If it's conventional explosives, a running person can't carry enough in a sprint to midfield to harm many people; if it's nuclear, chemical or biological, there's no reason to go to midfield, or reveal yourself or call attention to yourself in any other way, and risk being thwarted. You're just gonna set it off.
If a guy comes into my office building I can justifiably beat the crap out of him, right? I mean if he's crazy enough to run in here he's crazy enough to do anything. Heck it might even be a suicide bomber. My point is why do they get a different set of rules then everyone else? Because it's a big stage and lot's of people are there? Go ahead and defend yourself but ripping a guys head off is never called for.
And in the baseball season, didn't Eric Byrnes tackle some fan on the field? iirc, he pulled the guy down off of the outfield wall. and i believe afterwards he was told that he shouldn't have gotten involved and to let security handle it. if a guy is just running around the field or bases, i guess i would say to let security handle it. if he's running towards a player/coach/official, i have no problem with a player stepping in to diffuse the situation (which does not mean beating a guy's skull in).
If it's conventional explosives, a running person can't carry enough in a sprint to midfield to harm many people Which is exactly why I said what I said above. Going to the middle of the field and blowing himself up (and quite possibly grabbing a player or two) would create huge panic and cause a large number of trampling deaths in the stands. Hinrichs did plenty enough damage to himself carrying only a backpack. And if the goal is striking fear and causing damage, again, I don't know what would cause more widespread panic than blowing something up on national television. I mean, if you can do that during an NFL game, imagine what else those terrorists could do, you know?
Going to the middle of the field and blowing himself up (and quite possibly grabbing a player or two) would create huge panic and cause a large number of trampling deaths in the stands. Sheerest speculation, wfrazerjr, that situation has never happened. Hell, this is football, most people would probably think it was the halftime show. And if the goal is striking fear and causing damage, again, I don't know what would cause more widespread panic than blowing something up on national television. I mean, if you can do that during an NFL game, imagine what else those terrorists could do, you know? wfjr, you've been seeing too many movies. Really. I know that the NFL is supposed to be our most sacred icon, but if, as you say, an NFL game is the pinnacle of the sacred and unimpeachable, why didn't the 9/11 bombers fly on a Sunday and hit four stadiums instead? That surely would have sent us all into a much greater panic than the WTC and the Pentagon, right?
If it's conventional explosives, a running person can't carry enough in a sprint to midfield to harm many people You obviously don't know anything about explosives. Half a pound could kill several people. For added fun, attach a few dozen BBs with Krazy Glue and create your very own Claymore antipersonnel mine. If I were going to pull off some kind of suicide-bombing stunt, it'd make quite a statement to run out to where the players are and set off a vestful of Semtex. I guarantee there'd be absolulte pandemonium in the stands.
Okay, this conversation is spinning into hysteria and straw-mania all over the place. No one's advocating this asshole gets lined up against a wall, and can we leave terrorism out of this? (A drunken idiot looking for a few seconds' fame on SportsCenter and a fanatic with a backpack full of explosives are two radically different things, and the latter is a whole different conversation that has nothing to do with this knucklehead.) You want to stop the drunken idiots going on the field? Logic won't get to them, but the image of an armored 300-pound thoroughbred knocking the wind out of one of their own will slow the flow of idiots looking for 15 seconds of fame. Terrorists are a whole nother thing, requiring a different set of security measures and viewpoints, and don't belong in this conversation at all. Don't give this knucklehead that kind of credit.
Sheerest speculation, wfrazerjr, that situation has never happened. Hell, this is football, most people would probably think it was the halftime show. Forgive me for speculating. I'm sure you weren't doing that when you presumed seeing several people explode in the middle of the field might not upset folks in the stands. They're all drunk and stupid enough to think it's the halftime show, I agree. I know that the NFL is supposed to be our most sacred icon, but if, as you say, an NFL game is the pinnacle of the sacred and unimpeachable, why didn't the 9/11 bombers fly on a Sunday and hit four stadiums instead? That surely would have sent us all into a much greater panic than the WTC and the Pentagon, right? I don't know, lbb, but just like you, I have no idea why they chose the targets they did. I suspect for maximum damage and psychological effect -- which would be exactly the same reasons to attack a sporting event with a large number of fans and a television audience. If you'd like to name a few other targets where more people could be injured and the whole thing would absolutely be filmed and perhaps even be televised live to a national audience, go right ahead. It has nothing to do with movies. It's common sense. Chico, I don't think these things are radically different at all, and here's why -- can you quickly identify and separate the two if they are running out onto the field? Will the bomber be wearing, I dunno, a bomber jacket or "I Blew Up The Meadowlands And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" apparel? No, Gall doing a strip job on Favre wasn't anything big ... other than to point out that sideline security is amazing lax in one place ... and maybe it should be looked at in most major venues.
Logic won't get to them, but the image of an armored 300-pound thoroughbred knocking the wind out of one of their own will slow the flow of idiots looking for 15 seconds of fame. Nothing I tell you, not even your little war horsies, will stop them. I'm sure in there eyes the 15 seconds would be worth the pain. What's cooler than being on TV? Getting leveled by a player on TV.
Your right frazer. We should probably frisk all the players too i mean who's in a better position then the players to detonate a bomb. They could hide all sorts of bombs under there pads and perhaps a low yield nuclear device in there jock straps.
Thanks for an incredibly stupid interpretation of my comments, Tron7.
will someone please think of the children!
Not after Megan's Law got enacted.
That may be the darkest joke ever posted on SportsFilter.
Yeah, but it was a good one. Keep those thoughts clean and legal!
Go back to sleep America, your government is taking care of everything.
Talk about paranoia. Drunk guy runs on to the field and you gang are debating the finer points of suicide bombing theory vis a vis televised games? Holy shit. Relax. Take a deep breath. There are many, many better targets than Football games. How many soccer stadiums have been the target of terrorist attacks in countries that have more experience with terrorism (Ireland, France, Israel, Spain, Phillipines, Russia, the entire continent of South America, etc. - good lord, you act like there is no data to go on)? Not many, folks. Not that it isn't a good idea - just that there are much more attractive targets.
Dammit Weedy, I won't have you undermining a perfectly good bout of paranoid hysteria!
Weedy, could you point me to a source for all the relevant data about good places for terrorist attacks? I'm curious, because I'd want to know how they were determined and what factors influenced choices, i.e. would soccer stadiums be less likely to be targetd by national terrorists because they were fans of the team or the league, as opposed to Muslim terrorists bombing an NFL game because they saw it as part of the sickness in the United States? Thanks!
Thanks for an incredibly stupid interpretation of my comments, Tron7. Interpretation? That was a joke to illustrate your paranoia. I think it's a logical next step to your theory. If spectators can be terrorists why not the players, right?
It's football.
Since they stop the game and don't show security clobbering the drunken clown, why don't the networks zoom in on the cheerleaders for a few minutes. (That suggestion came from a drunken clown in my house watching the game.)
