So this is basically morbid thought processes spun off by the Newtown killing and all the reading and such I've done about spree killings and etc over the years. I'm curious, presuming the following:
1. Lone actor.
2. No NBCs.
What is the best, most reliable means of killing a huge number of people.
Thoughts that come to mind:
1. Large building bombing. Still just as effective as it was in Oklahoma City, but the super-easy to make fertilizer bomb would be harder to get the materials for these days without attracting undue attention. There is much better security in re vehicles parking near Federal buildings now, but I can name a dozen highly populated corporate office buildings where that isn't true.
Downsides: Sometimes even well put together bombs don't detonate, sometimes they are slightly imperfect and detonate with much less force than is required.
2. Aerial Tramways. I'd think the Roosevelt Island Tramway, being a type of aerial cable car, could be easily destroyed with explosives. If you planned it to detonate when they were at or near maximum capacity and took out both cars (I believe there are only two that run at the same time), it would kill 200+ guaranteed.
Downsides: I don't know how easy it would be to plant a bomb in such a public place unnoticed.
3. Large incendiary device a megachurch. So megachurches sometimes have crowds of 15,000+ in attendance at one time, and churches aren't high security areas. You could probably plant something or just open the doors and wheel something down the aisles in the middle of a Joel Osteen screed and kill a huge number of people, not just from the initial detonation but it would cause a huge fire and mad panic and chaos would lead to many trampling deaths.
Downsides: Possibly earn the wrath of God.
great, now the FBI will be all over the forum :P
Naw, I work for the government and we talk about this shit all the time in disaster recovery, emergency management and etc meetings where we go over a long list of implausible scenarios and how we'd respond to them. (In theory, the actual response would be ineptitude and stupidity regardless of whatever plan we spend 60 man hours talking about and 300 man hours designing.)
Quote from: Tamas on December 21, 2012, 05:44:19 PM
great, now the FBI will be all over the forum :P
Will probably create red flags for your work visa application. :yes:
Lock all the theater doors and get Great White to play.
Non-mainstream idea: Spread disinformation that common childhood vaccines are harmful. I wonder how many people have already died to that foolishness? And I don't know that it even involved a true criminal act (maybe a civil suit, though?)
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on December 21, 2012, 06:01:02 PM
Non-mainstream idea: Spread disinformation that common childhood vaccines are harmful. I wonder how many people have already died to that foolishness? And I don't know that it even involved a true criminal act (maybe a civil suit, though?)
Jenny McCarthy has that one covered.
All McDonalds now free.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on December 21, 2012, 05:57:07 PM
Lock all the theater doors and get Great White to play.
:XD:
Quote from: PDH on December 21, 2012, 06:32:57 PM
All McDonalds now free.
With the McRib out? Goodbye black people. :(
Quote from: Ed Anger on December 21, 2012, 07:00:45 PM
Quote from: PDH on December 21, 2012, 06:32:57 PM
All McDonalds now free.
With the McRib out? Goodbye black people. :(
Yea, what's up with that? Those thing are nasty.
Well placed explosives on a dam with populated areas downriver.
Well placed explosives of a bridge or tunnel at rush hour.
Chemical/Biological attack could be nasty also.
Put a 400 lb fattie on an already overload 2000 lb rated Otis elevator.
Sugar, wheat, HFCS and rancid vegetable oils in everything via agricultural subsidies.
It's much easier to kill indirectly. Less spectacular to be sure and thus fortunately less attractive to those who seek to make a statement, but a lot safer as well. Let's just say that there are certain services on which millions rely. Take those out in the right circumstances and tens of thousands will die.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on December 21, 2012, 05:57:07 PM
Lock all the theater doors and get Great White to play.
:pinch: :pinch: :pinch:
Every shrink I've seen has told me this really isn't a productive area of discussion.
That's what 5 Americans, 7 Brits or 12 Europeans ?
Asking the first two groups to run for a taxi, should just about do it. :)
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on December 21, 2012, 05:47:44 PM
Naw, I work for the government and we talk about this shit all the time in disaster recovery, emergency management and etc meetings where we go over a long list of implausible scenarios and how we'd respond to them.
Yeah, we did the same stuff with EM and DR. Actually had someone try to figure out how much TNT would be needed to bring down the corporate HQ.
Although, it's interesting to see how the concentration has shrunk from mass casualty events to cyber-events over the last 10 years. The last massive DR/Business Continuity tabletop I attended was all 100% cyber.
Hospitals still do the mass casualty event stuff all the time; hell, I remember the one mass casualty exercise I was involved in way back in '94: what would happen if a commercial plane in the ATC pattern to BWI crashes into Camden Yards on game night? ITS GONNA NEED A SHITLOAD OF SCREEN DOORS
Quote(In theory, the actual response would be ineptitude and stupidity regardless of whatever plan we spend 60 man hours talking about and 300 man hours designing.)
Ahhhhhhhhhhyup. Assholes and elbows.
Attacks at sporting events would probably be the worst for a lot of reasons. :shutup:
Quote from: Alcibiades on December 21, 2012, 11:27:06 PM
Attacks at sporting events would probably be the worst for a lot of reasons. :shutup:
Yeah, those reschedules games would play hell with the end of season title race.
Quote from: Alcibiades on December 21, 2012, 11:27:06 PM
Attacks at sporting events would probably be the worst for a lot of reasons. :shutup:
Not least because of the movies it would inspire:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmovie-poster.allsubs.org%2Fposters%2F666%2FSudden_Death_1995_big_poster.jpg&hash=d91935d38e8cde56f96dbbb3d8ae2fd40d3c79a5)
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on December 21, 2012, 06:01:02 PM
Non-mainstream idea: Spread disinformation that common childhood vaccines are harmful. I wonder how many people have already died to that foolishness? And I don't know that it even involved a true criminal act (maybe a civil suit, though?)
1024
antivaccinebodycount.com (http://antivaccinebodycount.com)
Quote from: CountDeMoney on December 21, 2012, 08:30:36 PM
Hospitals still do the mass casualty event stuff all the time; hell, I remember the one mass casualty exercise I was involved in way back in '94: what would happen if a commercial plane in the ATC pattern to BWI crashes into Camden Yards on game night? ITS GONNA NEED A SHITLOAD OF SCREEN DOORS
That flight coming in from Warsaw?
Quote from: lustindarkness on December 21, 2012, 07:15:29 PM
Well placed explosives on a dam with populated areas downriver.
No, you're confusing things. It's nuclear power that is extremely dangerous to the public. Not hydro. Hydro is safe.
Every time I drive on a crowded interstate I think about the havoc one could cause with a sudden turn of the steering wheel.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 22, 2012, 02:40:11 AM
Every time I drive on a crowded interstate I think about the havoc one could cause with a sudden turn of the steering wheel.
Those aren't good thoughts to have.
Car bombs are pretty easy to build. I know a guy who back in pre-11/9 days for an experiment made one out of an old wreck (safely detonated miles from civilization).
How about messing with train tracks to cause a derailment?
Works for partisans. Never heard of terrorists/general purpose psychos trying it though.
Quote from: lustindarkness on December 21, 2012, 07:15:29 PM
Well placed explosives on a dam with populated areas downriver.
That hardly sounds easy though. How are you going to do that without getting caught?
Quote from: Tyr on December 22, 2012, 03:15:00 AM
Car bombs are pretty easy to build. I know a guy who back in pre-11/9 days for an experiment made one out of an old wreck (safely detonated miles from civilization).
When I was a kid we used to experiment with pipe bombs. Usually we would blow up stumps out in the woods. One time, one of my friends was hammering a pipe bomb shut and it detonated in his face, which meant that he ended up with a glass eye. That ended the pipe bomb experimentation for all of us. :)
Easy. Cause the Earth to collide with the sun. :rolleyes:
Create a fake Tamiflu tampering scandal during flu season.
Though, Utøya seems to be a good example. Find a place with one or no escape routs and start shooting.
Quote from: Tyr on December 22, 2012, 03:15:00 AM
How about messing with train tracks to cause a derailment?
Works for partisans. Never heard of terrorists/general purpose psychos trying it though.
Partisans generally do that sort of thing to interrupt the shipping of military cargo on the rail line, not to kill the people on the train.
Quote from: Razgovory on December 22, 2012, 02:45:25 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 22, 2012, 02:40:11 AM
Every time I drive on a crowded interstate I think about the havoc one could cause with a sudden turn of the steering wheel.
Those aren't good thoughts to have.
Yeah, he should listen to you. :thumbsup:
Quote from: CountDeMoney on December 21, 2012, 08:30:36 PM
Hospitals still do the mass casualty event stuff all the time; hell, I remember the one mass casualty exercise I was involved in way back in '94: what would happen if a commercial plane in the ATC pattern to BWI crashes into Camden Yards on game night? ITS GONNA NEED A SHITLOAD OF SCREEN DOORS
Was Peter Angelos at that exercise? "Don't worry guys, I'll mitigate the risk of mass casualties by making the Orioles suck the for the next 15 years."
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 22, 2012, 02:40:11 AM
Every time I drive on a crowded interstate I think about the havoc one could cause with a sudden turn of the steering wheel.
A corollary to this is how much havoc could be created with minimal effort from terrorists. Imagine if every so often landmines were left on the roads of major cities at rush hour. That probably wouldn't kill many people, but people would be terrified to go to work, and there would be a large number of future road shutdowns with false alarms.
Yeah I thought about that often when I was deployed back in the day. Even just a handful of IED's on the side of the road here would cause insane amounts of panic :shutup:
And they're not hard to make, either. I'm honestly surprised it hasn't been done.
But then again, there's a reason that the NSA scans and catelogues the internets, and why this forum is now being flagged for this thread. :P
A few well placed explosives in several rooms of a large movie metroplex - timed to detonate at once after the screen goes black during blockbuster season.
There's no security checks at all on bags, purses, backpacks, sport bags...
What the blasts doesn't kill the trampling of a panicked herd would.
Even more effective would be several theaters hit at once but you limited your scenario to a one person event.
G.
Quote from: Alcibiades on December 22, 2012, 11:22:49 AM
And they're not hard to make, either. I'm honestly surprised it hasn't been done.
Most terrorists seem to be quite unimaginative and stupid.
Not that surprising when most people are unimaginative and stupid.
Quote from: Alcibiades on December 22, 2012, 11:22:49 AM
Yeah I thought about that often when I was deployed back in the day. Even just a handful of IED's on the side of the road here would cause insane amounts of panic :shutup:
And they're not hard to make, either. I'm honestly surprised it hasn't been done.
But then again, there's a reason that the NSA scans and catelogues the internets, and why this forum is now being flagged for this thread. :P
Probably because the people who want to do this are crazy teenagers, not people who have been trained in the military. Take the Columbine thing. They made a ton of bombs. None of them went off cause the people who made them were dumbstruck teenagers who got instructions of the net. I suppose what I'm saying is that the competency to build a bomb and the desire to do so don't normally occur in the same person. Occasionally they do, like the UnaBomber, but that's fairly rare.
How about releasing CO2 into a quasi enclosed area? Co2 isn't regulated but it kills at high concentrations, like that Nigerian village that got wiped off the face of the planet by a carbon.bubble emerging from a lake.
Quote from: Ideologue on December 22, 2012, 06:52:55 PM
How about releasing CO2 into a quasi enclosed area? Co2 isn't regulated but it kills at high concentrations, like that Nigerian village that got wiped off the face of the planet by a carbon.bubble emerging from a lake.
Like, say the Earth's atmosphere ?
I think I saw that in the Prisoner.
How much CO2 would you need though? The logistics might suck.
A similar approach would be using chlorine or similar shit. Even a moron can get and mix bleach and ammonia. Or burn certain materials within the A/C vents (that's how a bunch of people died here 20 or so years ago in a pub - owner bypassed electricity current limiters and wire insulators running through the vents caught fire).
Quote from: mongers on December 22, 2012, 07:28:18 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on December 22, 2012, 06:52:55 PM
How about releasing CO2 into a quasi enclosed area? Co2 isn't regulated but it kills at high concentrations, like that Nigerian village that got wiped off the face of the planet by a carbon.bubble emerging from a lake.
Like, say the Earth's atmosphere ?
There were periods in the distant past where Earth's atmosphere would have been immediately toxic, and relatively (geologically) recent periods where the CO2 concentration might have led to adverse health effects, e.g. the late Permian--2000ppm or 2%. 2%, it has been suggested, is not harmful in medium-term situations (like a tour of duty on a submarine), but that's apparently controversial and has not been adequately tested.
On the other hand, I think you need an immediate 7-10% to actually kill people instantly--more through oxygen displacement than toxicity--and that'd be difficult to do with even moderate ventilation. Scrap it. :(
Also, I guess this is against the rules anyway, as CO2--even if not very effective--would count as the "C" in NBC weapons.
What's the point of this thread? If someone knew of a good way, I'm sure they wouldn't spoil it here.
Quote from: DGuller on December 22, 2012, 09:44:06 PM
What's the point of this thread? If someone knew of a good way, I'm sure they wouldn't spoil it here.
You'll note that the really crazy people haven't actually disclosed a method.
First, you post a thread, "Best way to kill a ton of people?"
You then put in action the plan of one of the respondents you really don't like.
When the police apprehend you for your killing, you tell them about how you just followed the plan some guy told you in your thread.
That won't directly kill the respondent, but it may be effective enough.
That seems awfully roundabout. Plus you end up going to jail.
Quote from: Ideologue on December 22, 2012, 06:52:55 PM
How about releasing CO2 into a quasi enclosed area? Co2 isn't regulated but it kills at high concentrations, like that Nigerian village that got wiped off the face of the planet by a carbon.bubble emerging from a lake.
CO2 /= CO
Carbon monoxide kills. It is what kills when you put a hose from the exhaust into the passenger compartment of the car. e.g. taking over the A/C in an enclosed space and then filling it with CO might kill a lot of people.
Quote from: Viking on December 23, 2012, 02:02:43 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on December 22, 2012, 06:52:55 PM
How about releasing CO2 into a quasi enclosed area? Co2 isn't regulated but it kills at high concentrations, like that Nigerian village that got wiped off the face of the planet by a carbon.bubble emerging from a lake.
CO2 /= CO
Carbon monoxide kills. It is what kills when you put a hose from the exhaust into the passenger compartment of the car. e.g. taking over the A/C in an enclosed space and then filling it with CO might kill a lot of people.
:rolleyes: I'm pretty sure he meant carbon dioxide, which kills too if you breathe it in when you're supposed to be breathing in oxygen.
Much slower killer, though. Every year there's a couple of deaths in Vienna from Carbon Monoxide poisoning because of faulty gas heating/boiler systems (you're supposed to have them checked annually to prevent such accidents).
Quote from: DGuller on December 22, 2012, 09:44:06 PM
What's the point of this thread? If someone knew of a good way, I'm sure they wouldn't spoil it here.
Unsure.
Quote from: DGuller on December 23, 2012, 02:51:02 AM
Quote from: Viking on December 23, 2012, 02:02:43 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on December 22, 2012, 06:52:55 PM
How about releasing CO2 into a quasi enclosed area? Co2 isn't regulated but it kills at high concentrations, like that Nigerian village that got wiped off the face of the planet by a carbon.bubble emerging from a lake.
CO2 /= CO
Carbon monoxide kills. It is what kills when you put a hose from the exhaust into the passenger compartment of the car. e.g. taking over the A/C in an enclosed space and then filling it with CO might kill a lot of people.
:rolleyes: I'm pretty sure he meant carbon dioxide, which kills too if you breathe it in when you're supposed to be breathing in oxygen.
I guess, but nearly everything kills you if you breath it in instead of oxygen. Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen, water, rabbits.
I always thought that what actually just happened in Newton would have the greatest emotional impact. Rather than planning bombings of important targets or whatever, if a terror cell simply acquired firearms and then hit five different elementary schools in different states on the same day, that would bring the country to a screeching halt and cause an insane Orewllian reaction.
They kinda did that in India. India usually responds less with Orwellian laws and more mass lynching.
Quote from: Ideologue on December 22, 2012, 09:21:20 PM
Also, I guess this is against the rules anyway, as CO2--even if not very effective--would count as the "C" in NBC weapons.
I assumed he meant military-grade weaponized stuff, not homemade shit.
1. The thread is idle speculation, anyone who is confused/thinks it's more serious than that should lower their stupidity by at least 20%.
2. We can be a little liberal on the chemical weapons. Very technically you could argue a lot of things are chemical weapons that ordinary people would have access to, my point with no "NBCs" is more let's not talk about weaponized biological weapons you'd need a lap of professional biologists to produce or exotic chemical weapons that you'd need to be a chemist to have a reasonable shot at making yourself.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 23, 2012, 04:25:30 AM
I always thought that what actually just happened in Newton would have the greatest emotional impact. Rather than planning bombings of important targets or whatever, if a terror cell simply acquired firearms and then hit five different elementary schools in different states on the same day, that would bring the country to a screeching halt and cause an insane Orewllian reaction.
Well, the thread question was about how to kill as many people as possible at once, not how to maximize the emotional impact of the killings. That said, I do think that you're right that targetting elementary schools would provoke the maximum emotional response. But it might not be the response a terrorist would want--it would likely be anger rather than fear, I think. It would probably cause us to actually get serious about the war on terror, which would mean fighting it without the restrictive rules of engagement our troops are limited by now, and not coddling supposedly "friendly" regimes that in fact are opposed to our interests.
Quote from: dps on December 23, 2012, 06:49:01 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 23, 2012, 04:25:30 AM
I always thought that what actually just happened in Newton would have the greatest emotional impact. Rather than planning bombings of important targets or whatever, if a terror cell simply acquired firearms and then hit five different elementary schools in different states on the same day, that would bring the country to a screeching halt and cause an insane Orewllian reaction.
Well, the thread question was about how to kill as many people as possible at once, not how to maximize the emotional impact of the killings. That said, I do think that you're right that targetting elementary schools would provoke the maximum emotional response. But it might not be the response a terrorist would want--it would likely be anger rather than fear, I think. It would probably cause us to actually get serious about the war on terror, which would mean fighting it without the restrictive rules of engagement our troops are limited by now, and not coddling supposedly "friendly" regimes that in fact are opposed to our interests.
I'm not sure if I'd like to see what would happen if they actually succeeded in making Americans afraid. 9-11 made people angry. The last time people were Americans were terrified by an enemy attack was Pearl Harbor. That ended with the US glassing a couple of Japanese cities. If someone did something that actually really terrified us, something that would make us deadly serious, I don't think they would like the result. I don't think people fully realize what the US is capable doing, and has done in the past. You anger the US, you get CIA hunting you down or the army knocking on your door. You scare the US, you might have your country turned into a radioactive wasteland.
It's because we've been a bit soft in the lifetimes of everyone now alive that considers us an enemy. Even Vietnam, while endlessly bloody, lacked easily understandable points of impact like Dresden or Hiroshima; you can have a Basra highway, but miles of twisted metal may be daunting, they are not frightening. You can't blame them that they've forgotten the power of the air.
Quote from: dps on December 23, 2012, 06:49:01 PM
That said, I do think that you're right that targetting elementary schools would provoke the maximum emotional response. But it might not be the response a terrorist would want--it would likely be anger rather than fear, I think.
I attended an event that Melissa Boyle Mahle was a speaker at a few years ago--retired CIA officer, wrote a really great memoir, one of the better ones about the agency in recent years--and she was asked what kind of attack she would be most concerned about in the post 9/11 years, and what would be the most impactful; she said it wasn't the low probability events of an WMD or 9/11-style hijackings, but three guys with AK-47s and grenades on three different school buses at the same time in three different places in America that would shut this entire nation down. It's the most actionable, the most achievable, and the most debilitating.
Quote from: Ideologue on December 23, 2012, 07:32:25 PM
It's because we've been a bit soft in the lifetimes of everyone now alive that considers us an enemy. Even Vietnam, while endlessly bloody, lacked easily understandable points of impact like Dresden or Hiroshima; you can have a Basra highway, but miles of twisted metal may be daunting, they are not frightening. You can't blame them that they've forgotten the power of the air.
It's not just air power, either. If the invasion of Iraq had been conducted the way WWII was, Baghdad and other cities would have been flattened by artillery fire before the infantry moved in.
That guy in Sarajevo in 1914 managed to kill 10 millions or so with one pistol shot.