[akira2501]

The obvious question is "would these inspections have stopped Route 91?" I strongly suspect that would have had NO impact. The guest was known to them, was a high roller, known to get comps, and used the service elevator over several days to load the room with weapons hidden in cases. All for the purpose of attacking a large outdoor festival next to the hotel.

The other obvious question is, did the people who "cyberattack" them do so from _inside_ their own hotel? Is there some reason to think simple visual room inspections are going to help prevent their networks from being attacked?

None of these are logical responses to the stated problems. They're just ways to reduce privacy with a very thin corporate liability excuse tacked onto the end of it. I don't trust that they can people safe, and I don't trust their motivations in deploying these "techniques."

I'd rather sleep in the tunnels with the homeless at this point.

[smsm42]

Likely, if there were another terrorist (which is not very likely, they usually don't repeat the same thing over and over) the housekeeping would report something weird, and then somebody would file it somewhere, and would sit on it for hours if not days, and then when the shit hits the fan, everybody would trade the blame and claim it wasn't their job to do something about it. I mean, the US Secret Service works this way, do you expect hotel security to be better?

[mattmaroon]

Yes because nobody can sue the Secret Service for billions but they successfully got $800m out of MGM for that incident.

[jarsin]

I agree with you that it probably would not have stopped it, but Steve Wynn at the time was convinced his staff would have discovered him.

He claims they implemented policies in 2015 to enter and inspect all rooms after more than 12 hours of DnD. In other interviews he admits they "profile" everyone that enters their hotel.

https://nypost.com/2017/10/08/vegas-shooting-wouldnt-have-ha...

[beefnugs]

Its all about the security theatre.

If they really have "more cameras than anywhere else" and if that even mattered, then its already covered.

It would be orders of magnitude cheaper to put cameras in every single room, with a big sign saying this camera turns on every 4 hours with a big red light, and then if you cover it up a physical presence will occur.

Instead they go with: SHOW ME ALL YOUR USB DRIVES. Same shit as covid, if you make it normal for "officials" to touch and make copies of everything all the time everywhere, then there is no such thing as crime anymore yay

[michaelt]

If the objective is to check whether anyone's hiding an AR-15 in their hotel room, presumably you have to check under the bed and in the closet and in the bathroom, which a fixed camera couldn't do.

Also I think the average hotel guest is completely fine with maids entering during the day when the room's unoccupied, but would not appreciate a camera in the bedroom, with or without a big sign and a big red light.

[smsm42]

A rifle can be disassembled in relatively small components, and re-assembled in minutes. You'd have to do a pretty invasive and thorough search to detect it - and still, the criminal could just keep it in their car, which is not checked, and bring it in 10 minutes before the time, assemble it and do the deed.

[akira2501]

There are collapsible and even folding ARs. They wouldn't be impossible to get into a regular travel suitcase.

[smsm42]

You don't need anything special - most of them can be easily disassembled, with most components fitting a purse, not even suitcase. The barrel probably would be the biggest one - it has to be 16 inches long AFAIK or the law is going to have questions (of course if you're about to commit a crime anyway, it may be not that big of a deal, but most places won't sell you an illegal firearm). Still will fit a standard carryon suitcase, or most common backpacks.

[porkbeer]

Why single out a rifle? Handguns are cheaper, concealable, and used in most mass shootings already. Demonize the actor not the tool.

[ketzo]

“Why single out a rifle”? C’mon, man. The shooting being discussed in this thread would have been orders of magnitude less devastating with just a handgun, and you know it. Don’t make it a weird 2A thing.

The objective is not “make sure nobody in Vegas has a gun” the objective is “prevent a mass casualty event like the previous one”

Obviously the “tool” makes a difference, otherwise the tool wouldn’t have been used.

[smegger001]

sounds like someone needs to have USBKill amongst their drives for when these clowns try to check them.

[Marsymars]

> He claims they implemented policies in 2015 to enter and inspect all rooms after more than 12 hours of DnD.

Eh, I guess I'd trip flags there. I typically put up the DnD on checking in at a hotel and leave it up until I check out. It's not a principled stance or anything, I'm just never staying for an amount of time (i.e. more than a week) where I'd need housekeeping services so figure I can save the housekeeping staff some effort and save some water.

[kelnos]

Yeah, same here. I'm happy to save the housekeeping staff some time and effort for something I don't really need, and I just don't like people coming into the room while I'm gone. Including security-theater room inspectors.

[incompatible]

So, potential future shooters will be limited to the number of guns that they can bring in to the hotel in 24 hours (or however many hours they have between the last inspection and their "event".) I'm sure that will help a lot.

[jarsin]

I couldn't find the exact interview, but I distinctly remember Wynn saying they have devices that can detect guns in bags and on persons.

I found an interview where he just mentions "devices" amongst other extreme security measures.

- "Devices" at every entrance that the public can't see

- 40 Plain clothed, armed, former Marines trained specifically for guarding US embassy's at each entrance.

- Seal team and CIA agents that form private counter terrorism that have direct communication with FBI etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkpTRYhFN9c

[mapmeld]

Video is from 2016, so tough to say how much of that is or ever was implemented. The NYC subway is just now piloting metal detector type devices which are poles which detect "signatures" of common items and weapons. I have no idea how often these detect weapons or false positive on a laptop or lacrosse stick, and the press has not been interested in the science of it so far.

[devinegan]

He had 10 guns and thousands of rounds of ammo. Killed 60+ and wounded 400+. Yes this would be a fraction but still possible to cause a lot of harm in 24hr.

[devinegan]

“ Authorities have said he brought 23 weapons in 10 suitcases into the room and set up cameras inside and out to watch for police closing in on him.”

If they are looking through everyone’s rooms I would hope they find this now as he took days to get all of the guns and ammo up to his suite. I am not law enforcement and can’t say for sure though. The US has done a lot worse in the name of terrorism (I believe this was a terrorist act).

[akira2501]

He did this in broad daylight. The guns were disguised in cases. He used the service elevator with staff help. In one case the staff helped move his guns on a rack.

If he leaves the guns in the cases it just looks like he has a lot of luggage. He had a huge suite. If it didn't look odd to them in the first place I can't imagine how it would in retrospect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uci5Ar2HFr0

[devinegan]

I believe that is why the policy we are discussing changed.

[kelnos]

Why did he need 23 weapons? Seems like someone could have done just as much damage with one weapon and a bunch of ammo. I feel like it would be pretty trivial to bring a couple luggage cases in with that, plus some cameras, without hotel staff being suspicious, especially if you didn't bring any "normal" luggage with clothes or toiletries or the usual stuff people bring, to keep the total number of luggage pieces down.

Hotel staff certainly wouldn't find that with room inspections; they'd just see three or four pieces of luggage, which shouldn't raise any eyebrows. Then when the shooter decides to get started, they take everything out of the cases and set things up.

Like... this isn't rocket science. The only kind of room inspection that would actually stop these kinds of attacks would be if they do room searches, including opening and going through people's luggage. But I hope we can all agree that would be a huge invasion of privacy that no one should accept.

Of, course the actual way to stop -- or at least drastically reduce -- these sorts of attacks would be much stronger gun, ammo, and accessory controls. But of course the mouth-breathing 2A crowd (including most of SCOTUS) think guns are more important than people's lives.

[devinegan]

Guns overheat when a large volume of ammunition is discharged in a short amount of time. *edit for grammar

[mattmaroon]

This policy by itself: perhaps not. He did skip a room cleaning one day before the shooting, but he quite probably could have worked around one if he knew it was coming as a matter of policy. It is, however, just one of many changes made, all of which in concert (no pun intended) would make something like that at least significantly harder to do.

For instance, he had bell desk bring 22 large suitcases to his room over a few days. That's a huge red flag that would not go unnoticed now (and there's likely some procedure about logging/reporting since then). Prior to that event, nobody logged or even paid attention to such things. When you work with whales in Vegas, you just get used to eccentric rich people being eccentric rich people. Now you're at least aware of threats from people posing as them.

[gosub100]

of course they wouldn't have, but if they don't change their policies at all, they have 2 new problems: some patrons will perceive your property as not taking security seriously if other hotels have "beefed up security" while yours doesn't. Secondly, if there were another shooting, even if it wasn't nearly as big as the Route 91 massacre, in court they could point to your lack of doing anything whatsoever "in the face of the nations worst shooting".

[akira2501]

> but if they don't change their policies at all

Is it not possible to create new policies that are effective while not compromising the privacy of your guests?

[gosub100]

not really, no. I'm sure they considered everything, like having airport-style security to go up to the rooms, which is even more invasive. This way if there is another incident they can point to their policy and say "see? we inspect every room every 24 hours. We can't have a security guard in every room, but we at least tried"