Watch for major hotels to begin scanning guest's bags

[MineralMan]

at check-in following this mass shooting in Las Vegas. Especially in Las Vegas. The incredible events that took place from the 32 floor of the Mandalay Bay should send a message about security screening at hotels. To come into that hotel with that many firearms and ammunition would require more luggage and heavier luggage than most guests arrive with.

Here's a scenario I can imagine, if such enhanced security were implemented:

"What's in your bag sir? It has set off our metal detectors. Would you mind opening it up for inspection? You won't? Well, in that case, I'm afraid we cannot accommodate you with a room in our hotel. This security officer will escort you out of the building."

That's what I'd do if I owned a huge hotel anywhere. Screen all bags with at least metal detection equipment.

[Yavin4]

1. Nevada is an open carry state

It doesn't matter if they scan.

[MineralMan]

5. Private properties can set their own rules.

They have private liabilities to consider. I don't really care about open carry laws, frankly. This was not that. The man brought multiple firearms into the hotel, almost certainly in luggage. Hotels and places of public accommodation can set their own security rules. If you don't like the rules you can check-in somewhere else.

There are going to be discussions about this in every major hotel, especially in Las Vegas, starting probably already this morning.

[Yavin4]

7. I don't know about that.

I don't know if the laws allow private property to restrict carrying guns on the premises.

[rockfordfile]

12. you can't carry a gun onto somebody's property without their permission

[JoeStuckInOH]

15. The rules may be different for places of public access vs. private & access-controlled properties

[Lee-Lee]

22. No it's the same

Private property owners can set their own rules.

The only limited exemptions to that is some states have laws saying an employer can't prohibit someone with a CCW from leaving the gun in a locked car in the parking lot.

In every state a private business has the legal power to regulate if someone has a gun, a knife, pepper spray, food, drink, open toed shoes...

[JoeStuckInOH]

23. I was more thinking about property/dwelling type laws

I know in some states, here in Ohio for example, a landlord property owner cannot prohibit a tenant from legally owning or possessing guns on the rented property. This goes for both single and multi-unit rental properties.

I wonder if this concept extends to hotels because, in a way, they're like property/dwelling rentals.

[Lee-Lee]

33. I'm not aware of any state where it does

Landlord/tenant laws typically don't come into play on hotels and short term rentals. Usually only on rentals over 30 days.

Otherwise someone could rent a real I'm for one night and then stay in there 30-90 days while the hotel owner had to go through all the hoops to do a legal eviction.

[MineralMan]

17. Yes, they can. Not by posting signs in Nevada,

but if asked to leave the premises if you are open carrying, you must leave or you can be charged with trespassing.

Here's the thing, though: A private property can impose whatever rules it wished to impose. Your option is not to patronize that property. So, a hotel or casino can certainly require you to pass through a metal detector or scan your luggage if it wishes to. It's their property and you are a guest.

Such a property can exclude you from the premises. In Las Vegas, security frequently escorts people out of the building for a number of reasons. It happens daily. If they do, and you return, the Las Vegas police will gladly arrest your for trespassing. In that city, security for casinos, most of which are also hotels, is actually quite tight. Wherever you are in the place, you can count on being on camera and under surveillance, except in your hotel room and, perhaps restrooms.

Most casinos in Vegas do NOT allow open carry inside of the building and will ask you to disarm or leave if you refuse. It's only a small extension of that to scan bags of guests for security purposes. The casinos want your business, of course, but they also insist on security measures, to protect them and their other guests.

[snooper2]

2. hotels have more than one entrance, your room key lets you in

not, gonna, happen...ever

[redstatebluegirl]

3. Never in Nevada, it is one of the most lenient in terms of gun laws.

[HAB911]

4. Nevada

law does not require firearms owners to have licenses, register their weapons, or limits the number of firearms an individual posses. Automatic assault weapons and machine guns are also legal in the state as long as they are registered and are possessed in adherence to federal law, according to the National Rifle Association.

Nevada does not prohibit the transfer or possession of assault weapons, 50 caliber rifles or large capacity ammunition magazines. Local law enforcement issues concealed handgun licenses. Open carry is legal without a permit.

[exboyfil]

6. Better chance of ballistic glass

and windows that can't open. Also carefully controlled overlook points.

I suspect the lawsuits for Mandalay Bay will be tremendous, and, in my opinion, unfair.

[Blue_Adept]

8. I can't wait to have to start taking out all my sex toys for inspection at hotel front desks

[ret5hd]

10. What, exactly, is THIS used for???

[JoeStuckInOH]

19. Is there a difference between regular dildos and high-capacity assault dildos?

[Blue_Adept]

24. You better believe it!

The high capacity stuff is what gets frowned upon around these parts!

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

9. We pushed for metal detectors at an indoor shopping mall

Police and local government behind it.

Property management :

"Appears to unfriendly to the public"

[fescuerescue]

25. I wouldn't shop there

God what a pain in the neck it would be just to go to a mall.

Plus my immediate thought when I see any place besides an airport with a metal detector is "this place must have a crime problem"

A few years ago, a bank branch implemented this system where it had a set of double doors, and a metal detector in between. Once the first door closed, the second door wouldn't open unless the metal detector was clear. It was a pain in the neck honestly. After I saw it, I wondered what would prompt such an unfriendly setup. SO I googled the bank and found that they had suffered a number of robberys in the last year.

While I felt bad for them, I didn't want to do business in a place that was in a crime hotspot, not deal with cumbersome security. Ultimately I switched branches.

[NutmegYankee]

31. It's an unbelievably terrible idea.

Potential shoppers won't want to endure the hassle, and others will see the metal detectors as evidence that the mall is unsafe. And worst of all, it causes people to queue up into a crowd outside the gate, presenting the best soft target for an attacker.

A lot of people have metal surgical implants for bad disks, broken bones, replacement joints, pacemakers/ADs. The last thing they want is yet more hassling of them. Put metal detectors up on a mall and all you'll get is an empty mall building in a few years.

[malaise]

11. More and more invasions of your privacy

for the benefit of the NRA and gun humpers

[NotASurfer]

13. Was just watching whoever MSNBC has as a guest

No idea whether they know what they’re talking about, but they did make a statement that firearms are banned from hotels and casinos in Vegas.

If I heard that right. No sleep last night for other reasons

[DFW]

14. I can understand golf bags and the like

What if the guy is a rep for Harry Winston, and has $7 million worth of fancy jewelry in a small suitcase to show high-brow clients in an upscale hotel? The best security he has is his anonymity. He won't be willing to show off platinum necklaces with 10 carat diamonds to some security guy, and with good reason. They are often the ones who tip off thieves. Or a guy has come to try to sell some new gadget to Apple or Microsoft and the hotel was convenient? I can think of a hundred scenarios where a hotel guest would have a perfectly legitimate reason to not be searched. Since 99% of hotel guests wouldn't care, those who did care would be easy targets for bad guys. Here in Europe, I've seen it happen to guys I knew.

It's as easy a call to make as it might seem on the surface. I know one guy who was at ax exposition in Berlin, put his stuff in the room safe, went to dinner, and came back to find the whole room safe gone.

[Historic NY]

16. You know what will speak in Nevada.........

people boycotting the casinos and other venues. Fear does strange things especially if people don't feel safe in traveling there.

[R B Garr]

18. I don't know. We stayed at that Mandalay Bay hotel, and it's like walking across

a shopping mall just to get to the elevators and your room. There is literally a shopping mall surrounding it--you can go up the elevators and get to some mall stores. There were hordes of people with luggage stacked on those wheeled baggage carts*. They would have to implement something at the elevators or require that every single bag be carried up by hotel personnel. We were exhausted and annoyed just getting to our room.

That's the way it is with a lot of those larger resorts in that area. Like walking through a shopping mall just to get to the elevators.

*it would not be hard to stack one of those carts with multiple bags that conceal weapons.

[jberryhill]

38. Precisely

At most hotels in LV, you check in at a counter and then you go through any number of public areas before reaching the elevator.

Either (a) you would have to be prevented from taking up your own bags, or (b) the checkpoints would need to be at the elevators or every single entrance in the interconnected shopping/hotel spaces among LV hotels.

[MuseRider]

20. Almost everywhere I go

that involves crowds of people I am expected to open my purse and let anyone with a badge from the event look through my purse. It is a pain in the ass but it is probably a good idea since we don't control what people can carry around. You can no longer take your own water into many places and you must pay for their very expensive water at the venue.

The funny thing is that nobody checks men that I have ever seen in my experience anyway. I have been to concerts where the lines to get in for women look like the bathroom lines for the ladies rooms and my male friends went and got goodies before I even got in. Some venues do have metal detectors and men do have to go through those as well as the women but we still have to stop and have our purses gone through.

So, if they do check bags consider that something that many of us have been dealing with already.

Funny thing, I went to a concert last night at a venue we frequent. I cannot remember going there where I did not have to take everything out of my purse or at least let a stranger paw around in it and/or wand it. Nobody was checked. Nobody, there was no one except the ticket takers last night. Odd on a night that something like this happened that this particular venue gave up of checking all the women for contraband.

All the women.

[sinkingfeeling]

21. Yeah, because 2nd. Amendment rights are destroying our freedom and all

other rights.

[R B Garr]

26. It will be interesting to see whatever hotel security cameras they have of him transporting

baggages up to the room. I bet they're going through that now, although it's obviously so incredibly crowded there all the time, it might take some time. They can see the time of his check-in, though, and trace him from there.

[Vogon_Glory]

27. I can imagine a slightly different scenario

Gun vaults. You bring your pistol or long gun with you, you are to check it into the hotel/resort's gun vault, otherwise you cannot stay at the property.

People planning to play with their pieces before/during a gun show will just have to do that somewhere else or go downscale.

[ghostsinthemachine]

28. No way.

Imagine the nightmare that would cause. Now, sensors on the windows so they alarmed when windows open or broke (the windows at Mandalay Bay do not open) then you've got something.

There are so many gun shows in Vegas. NV is open carry. But checking a large hotels guests, with a big search? No.

[jberryhill]

29. That's absurd

As if the only time one carries luggage into a hotel is at check-in, or as if one checks in with all one's bags. I gather you are going to re-arrange your hotels so that there are no direct elevators to the parking garages, and that every person who goes shopping and comes back in is going to have their bags searched.

Of course, practically all bags are going to have metal in them.

[MineralMan]

30. They do it at airports every day with millions of passengers.

Checked bags, too. You just aren't there when they check those, most of the time.

I'ts not absurd at all, really, and could be implemented without that much trouble, although with some expense, of course. Every hotel/casino in Vegas has security at every entrance, even if it is just a camera being monitored by some security person. Adding metal detection isn't that difficult, really, and you don't even have to notice it if it's there. Typically, the sensitivity of such detection equipment can be customized, as well.

Enhancing security does cost money, but so do lawsuits and other problems.

Las Vegas is very security conscious, especially at casino hotels. Adding a bit more security is not going to be that big a deal, really.

And these days, there's enhanced security at a lot of places. You've probably walked past many metal detection units without even noticing. They're not set to find your car keys or even your pocket knife, because they don't care about that stuff. Heck, even the farm supply store I visit frequently has metal detectors at both of its entrances. Most people don't notice them, but they're there, and you can't get into the store without going through them. And then, when you leave, you have to pass through a RFID security tag detector, and just about everything priced over $100 is tagged. There's a security guy nearby, as well, and more scattered around the store.

We're entering a new age of security monitoring, just about everywhere you go. You're on camera pretty much all the time in just about every sort of building. Adding some metal detection technology isn't a bit stretch. Most of the time, you'll not even notice it. But, if you are carrying and that place doesn't want you carrying, someone might just come up and say, "Excuse me, sir..."

It's not absurd at all, and you can expect more of it as time passes. I guarantee that the security management at every Vegas casino hotel and resort are having a meeting today to discuss security upgrades for the future. Absolutely, not absurdly, either.

[jberryhill]

32. Airports are unlike hotels

You have to check in to a US domestic flight at least one hour prior to takeoff, because they take your checked luggage and it goes through the process before loading onto the plane. Nobody is going to have a 1-hour rule for getting to your hotel room.

Nobody goes back to their car in the airport parking lot for their luggage - it all comes in at once. You go through one time, and leave the airport. At a hotel, one comes and goes multiple times, often returning from shopping excursions (particularly in LV which is about the only time I actually "go shopping" for clothing for some odd reason).

These hotels host trade shows and a lot of other functions. Is there going to be a briefcase and bag check at each elevator? I don't know about you, but when I'm at a conference in Vegas at a hotel, I might go from the conference area to my room three or four times during the course of a day, carrying a bag which contains a laptop and many other metal items.

If you check into your hotel room, then go back to your car to get a bag you left in the trunk, you are going to, what, sit in the lobby again while your bag goes on the belt with the 50 other bags in line? You seem to be under the belief that the only time one carries a bag to one's room at a hotel is at check in. And, again, all of the elevators which provide key access from the parking lots to the rooms are going to have be programmed to not allow them to go the room floors from the parking lots, since every time the guests will need to go through a security check in, presumably, the lobby.

But as described elsewhere, there is no "lobby" as such in places like Mandalay Bay. It is a huge shopping arcade.

And, for what? To prevent a "window sniper" repeat? When someone can just roll into town and spray the strip with bullets if they were so-inclined?

Yes, there are metal detectors all over places where people aren't carrying luggage with them. There is also a reason why you don't take your carry-on luggage through the metal detector at an airport, because it is going to contain metal. Using a "metal detector" on luggage is a pointless exercise.

I'm going to guess you have not seen the check-in lines at major strip hotels just after the mid-day wave of arrivals at McCarran.

[HipChick]

34. Agree...those hotel check-in lines are nothing to sneeze at...

[jberryhill]

36. It's why the LV hotels have price-differentiated on check in

If you get a $79 dollar room at the Luxor, you are going to be in quite the mob when you get to the lobby.

Most of the major hotels in Vegas have implemented separate check-in facilities for premium rooms.

[Lee-Lee]

35. Do you have any idea what that would cost per hotel?

You have all the equipment needed.

Then you have all the people needed to run it.

That would be a huge amount of people to do it in a way that didn't result in long delays entering the facility.

You would probably double the cost of rooms...

[Initech]

37. I'm going to Colorado on Thursday.

And there are going to be some 100,000+ in Denver for the event that I'm going to (the Great American Beer Festival) and this is the first time I've really been praying for amped up security. Really, we need it right now.

[greytdemocrat]

39. It sounds good

But like I've seen posted today before, you
could check in and then bring the bags up later
through one of the many side entrances.

[jmowreader]

40. He was there for several days before the shooting

They aren’t saying what kind of rifles he had beyond “assault rifles,” but AR-15s are super popular so there’s a decent chance he used them in this attack. AR-15s split into an upper receiver (containing the barrel and bolt group) and a lower receiver (containing the magazine well, buttstock and trigger group), and they’ll fit in any suitcase once separated. If he had one suitcase, drove off the property to put a gun in it, and claimed he was a photographer with a big camera if anyone asked - and they probably wouldn’t, it’s legal to walk around with a suitcase - he could get them in, no problem.

[MineralMan]

41. Yes, and the planning involved in this is a major puzzle waiting

to be solved. Why did that man plan and carry out such a thing? That's the question. I don't know if it will ever be answered.