> what you are saying is we can expect the number of accidental home-made chlorine-gas (and the like) toxic events go up
Maybe? One of the quirks of gaining even a surface-level understanding of infrastructure is realising how vulnerable it is to a smart, motivated adversary. The main thing protecting us isn't hard security. It's most Americans having better shit to do than running a truck of fertiliser and oxidiser into a pylon.
Similarly, I'd expect way more people to be trying to make their own designer drug, and hurting themselves that way, than trying to make neurotoxins.
> It's most Americans having better shit to do than running a truck of fertiliser and oxidiser into a pylon.
FWIW, it's most people having better shit to do, regardless of nationality (or lack thereof).
But, yeah, anyone who takes a few weekends to understand how large-scale infrastructure works and consider why it's possible for nearly all of it to remain untargeted by saboteurs inevitably develops a resistance to the "Lots of Bad Guys are trying to kill us all the time, so we must enact $AUTHORITARIAN_POLICIES immediately to prevent them and keep us safe!!!" type of argument.
My favorite example of this is the realization that a terrorist attack on a crowded TSA security checkpoint over the holidays would likely result in at least as many casualties as bringing down a commercial aircraft, with similar if not better odds of success (assuming, of course, the aircraft wasn't successfully used as a missile).
Same goes for concerts, sporting events, political rallies, and at least historically, shopping malls. Yet if anyone were to suggest a prohibition against carrying liquids in containers larger than 100 mL to the Indy 500, race fans would riot, despite a far larger and denser population than any aircraft.
Yeah. Everyone with half a brain who wasn't on their knees gagging for more of the sweet "Homeland Security" money was saying things like "If an attacker makes it to the TSA checkpoint, you've lost." and "The fact that no one has attacked the massive crowds at a checkpoint or other public gathering is yet more proof that this is all extremely expensive theater.".
> ...if anyone were to suggest a prohibition against carrying liquids in containers larger than 100 mL to the Indy 500, race fans would riot...
I'm not sure of that at all. Fans of other sports seem to have gleefully swallowed all sorts of "security" restrictions [0]. I don't see why Indy 500 fans would be signficantly different. Cut the price of water in half along with the change in "security" policy, and I bet many folks [1] will cheer it as a great convenience.
[0] That -totally coincidentally- happen to make the folks running the event significantly more money.
[1] Are these folks actually robots operated by PR firms who are hired to astroturf "positive sentiment" for unpopular changes? Who can say?
