HEADING FOR THE EXITS: Unfounded fears of a gun sent people scurrying for trhe exits at the Salt Bowl. That event perhaps helped inspire a bill to estblish security protocols for public events.

New legislation proposes a brand-new bureaucracy to establish a “uniform security protocol” for public events — such as football games and rock concerts.

HB 1415 by Rep. Brian Evans would establish a committee including university officials, state agencies and others to

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develop a standard security protocol for admission procedures for public events, whether ticketed or unticketed, held at arenas, stadiums, auditoriums, and other facilities designed to hold large numbers of people for public events

What might that mean?

The protocol specifications shall include without limitation:

 (A) Designation of the types and sizes of items that may  be brought into an event;

 (B) Standards for purses, bags, sacks, backpacks, and other implements designed to carry other items; and

 (C) Standards and recommendations for secure admissions to public events.

As written, the proposal doesn’t seem to provide for enforcement of these recommendations. This idea perhaps arises from the Salt Bowl panic at War Memorial. Or perhaps it’s just a byproduct of what seems to be, for many people at least, ever more anxious times.

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