I don't think the fact that taking hostages wouldn't actually succeed in making Trump president for the next four years is reason not to hope that law enforcement is suitably prepared to prevent emboldened 'patriots' from trying. Indeed it's precisely because such people are largely immune to normal deterrence measures you need law enforcement to be more effective.
I don't know if I can agree with the normal deterrence methods being ineffective. Despite claims of insurrection, they basically pushed their way into the building and then stood around. What stopped them from doing a lot worse wasn't that anyone could have stopped them in the moment, it was the deterrent (or the optics, which is effectively the same thing).
And different measures could make a marginal difference one way or the other, but if you have a huge mob of people trying to get into a building not explicitly designed to be a fortress, that's pretty hard to stop.
> Despite claims of insurrection, they basically pushed their way into the building and then stood around. What stopped them from doing a lot worse
...was that the people they were fairly explicitly targeting escaped the mob, in some cases with very little margin, because of successful use of barricades, delaying tactics, and in one case deadly force.
I'm trying to say this carefully, because what they actually did was not okay. People died.
But the amount of "it could have been worse" attributable entirely to what the mob didn't do, is large. And I don't think I'm wrong to attribute a lot of that to the ordinary deterrents being in effect.
There is a good reason we have different categories for 'attempted crime' and 'crime'. What they didn't do is mostly because it didn't work, not because there was no attempt. It all fell apart when their targets got to safety in time. Remove that one element, and take into account that they were given far more time to act because Trump held back deploying the NG and re-calibrate.
> There is a good reason we have different categories for 'attempted crime' and 'crime'.
One of the important ones is the line between planning to do something and actually doing it. It's one thing to stand in a crowd chanting something stupid, quite another if the moment comes and you have to choose.
> What they didn't do is mostly because it didn't work, not because there was no attempt.
What I'm referring to is methods, not goals.
Nobody wants to imagine the level of violence that people are capable of when unrestrained. I don't intend to describe it here, but the world has seen it in other times and other places.
I think what played a bigger role in stopping them from doing a lot worse was their targets had been evacuated, and when they tried to break into more secure areas one of them got shot. And sure, the truth is that a lot of people there weren't very bright and things got out of hand. But even the people taking selfies and souvenirs whilst the considerably-less-harmless guys in military fatigues carrying flex cuffs looked for Pence didn't fear punishment for their actions. You could tell that by the way they gave their names and itemised the crimes they'd committed to media outlets they supposed were sympathetic or livestreamed the whole thing.
Sure, a huge mob of people trying to get into a building not explicitly designed to be a fortress isn't easy to stop, and with the limited resources available evacuation was probably the right move, but what we actually saw on video in front of the Capitol was a line of about six police and a movable fence, and open doors. I've seen more convincing looking security at music festivals. You can try to deter people by what might happen if they try rather than what happens if they succeed, especially if they're crazy people who think what will actually happen if they succeed is President Trump giving them a medal.
They did not just stand around [1]. This was extremely violent, and they intended to murder people. Deterrence meant nothing to them. They were only stopped because the Capitol Police and Secret Service shot one of them. Different measures would absolutely have made a difference and saved lives.
Police regularly stops huge mobs of people, there are units dedicated to that.
What I still can't understand is why the police wasn't prepared for it. Isn't the FBI supposed to infiltrate dangerous groups? Or was the "march on capitol" completely unplanned before Trump suggested it? Finally, has nobody considered that something like this might have happened? (It was obvious to me, as well as at least one thinktank.)
