This is a scary situation, but I had to laugh at the statement that "security is very tight" at JSC.

Add Smithsonian museums (at least Air and Space and Natural History) to the places with walkthrough metal detectors and bag searches.

TO: Frank J, et al.
RE: Another 'Gun Free Zone', Eh?

Sounds to me like it's a situation where if you can get a gun into the place, it's 'open season'.

We've seen that often enough; Columbine, Bailey, some Amish school back East, Virginia Tech and now, Johnson Space Center.

I suspect you are correct, that the employees, i.e., the most likely people to go 'ballistic' [tongue firmly in cheek] are the employees. Not their 'admireers'.

The security was probably set up by some contracted outfit. Just like Denver's snow removal plan was developed by contracting some guys from Texas. We nearly removed Mayor Pena from office over that bit of 'contracting'; clueless as they all were.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

TO: Frank J., et al.
RE: ERRATA

Instead of....

"I suspect you are correct, that the employees, i.e., the most likely people to go 'ballistic' [tongue firmly in cheek] are the employees."

...it should read....

"I suspect you are correct, that the employees, i.e., the people who go there on a regular basis, are the most likely people to go 'ballistic' [tongue firmly in cheek]."

I set the track-pad to respond to touch. And it 'lost' the train of text.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

Chuckles,

Do you realize how many people work there? There's no way that they could check every car that goes through. It wouldn't matter if contractors were doing it or not.

As standard procedure, Mission Control's doors were locked, The Associated Press reported.

Since when is this reaction a "standard procedure"? First time I've heard of something like this happening at JSC.

My dad worked at Johnson and Kennedy and I worked at Cape Canaveral. The company I worked for also provided the contract security. There's no way anybody could check every person and car entering either Center. There's just too many. By the time you got in it'd be time for lunch.

Most employees are good, just like the general population. But they're as human as anyone else, so you're going to have issues like anywhere else. The only difference might be, with the number of security clearances and sensitive areas, some people are screened a little more than average.

Doesn't matter what you do...there is always some prick who wants to kill and is a coward so he picks unarmed people as his targets...we need the ability to take a gun out and dispatch these morons on the spot! It's called self defense...sigh...

Six Flags Magic Mountain has [bad] metal detectors. Their other parks may as well

Paramount's Carowinds theme park has bag-searchers AND metal detectors... lots. Disney really doesn't have metal detectors?

There are metal detectors for the museum, the tram tour and in the mission control building, but not for employees in the other buildings.

Six Flags over Texas has metal detectors. A little part of me died inside the day I saw that...