“What about metal detectors in the subways?” asked more than one local news anchor, in varying formulations, after New York saw a horrific mass shooting during morning rush hour on Tuesday. Maybe they were just trying to fill airtime. Maybe it was a natural response in the post-9/11 world, where one-off events have led to the construction of massive architectures of security. Something terrible and frightening happened? Surely there is some power we could give the state to stop it ever happening again. Surely we can reclaim order from the chaos, if only we can find a new reason for people to wait in line.
“Metal detectors in the subway” is the kind of idea you’d have if you don’t ride the subway. There are 472 stations throughout the New York City subway system and millions of riders a day. How many detectors would you need to cover them all? How are you going to line people up every single day on their morning commutes? Doesn’t this just create a mass of people at the entrance, packed together with no easy escape if something goes wrong outside the magic detectors? Will we take off our shoes? Take laptops out of our bags? Also, have you ever met anyone from New York?
After Mayor Eric Adams seemed to entertain the idea during a TV hit, his staffer Maxwell Young took to the Tweet Machine to explain that Adams did not mean “airport-style metal detectors,” he was floating the use of “innovative technology.” (This is a similar line to the one he’s taken on school…
