New radar technology will be able to detect firearms, knives and even bombs based on the shape of the items. (Photo: NBC Las Vegas)
The Westgate Las Vegas Resort and Casino has begun testing new radar technology that can detect firearms, knives, and bombs based on the shape of the item.
The device—dubbed Patscan Cognitive Microwave Radar by the Canadian security company PatriotOne—is small enough to be hidden in existing infrastructure and can work without the knowledge of the individuals who walk past.
Westgate’s chief operating officer Mark Waltrip told Wired that while he supports the Second Amendment, he wants to make sure visitors are following the casino’s no firearms policy.
“I believe in people’s right to bear arms,” Waltrip said. “I have a concealed carry permit myself. But, you know, on our properties, we want to maintain a safe environment, and we don’t need guests bringing weapons on site. We really don’t want that kind of surprise.”
Las Vegas casinos are under pressure to ensure the safety of their guests following the attack last October. But Waltrip explained that, unlike airports or government buildings, casinos cannot impose inconvenient security measures on its customers, most of whom are there to cut loose and have a good time.
“People come to Vegas because it’s the fun capital of the world. They’re there to let loose, rock and roll, and do things they’d never do,” Waltrip said. “If they show up at their resort and they have to line up for metal detectors, or get wanded down, or walk through a gauntlet of security guards carrying rifles and pistols—that’s not going make them feel comfortable. It’s going to ruin their experience.”
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The Patscan CMR works by emitting low-power pulses of electromagnetic radiation. When an object is hit with radiation, it resonates according to its shape and material composition. The system references PatriotOne’s database of radiation signatures. And when it senses a signature that matches a gun, knife, or bomb, it signals the operator.
PatriotOne assures its customers that the system can differentiate between a weapon and a cell phone or house keys. The system also provides a percentage rather than a simple yes or no—when it thinks it detects a weapon. It tells the operator the likelihood that it has identified the item correctly.
The company doesn’t address in any of its promotional material how the system will detect guns that can be carried in non-gun shapes or bags equipped with electromagnetic shielding, which, if this technology becomes widespread, will no doubt be used to evade it.
For now the Westgate is test-driving the new device at its employee entrance before it implements it throughout the hotel.
What are your thoughts? Do you like the idea of Patscan technology?
It is a device that detects objects on a person\’s body for security screening purposes, without physically removing clothes or making physical contact.
Fairly easy to determine the signal and shield against it in the microwave range…as long as the hotel/casino wants to do this in a “stealth” manner. Otherwise, whoever is operating the device might take the objectionable step of intercepting the customer and ask to see what is in their bag…when that device shows indeterminate. Unless this becomes business as usual along the lines of some version of TSA, it would be a judgment call on the people operating it to confront a customer at point of entry or a scan of their room later if effective shielding is used.
DANG!
Now I need to buy clothing equipped with electromagnetic shielding!
first i thought the guy was english but then says he’s in Canada both are one in the same they don’t want any of their people to have freedoms. then we don’t know what this scanning will end up doing to your body as it’s being scanned with microwaves, will it cook you from the inside out? they don’t know and really don’t care. last the ever so smart people they stopped on the street to ask what they thought about this, “well you have to give up a little freedom to have security” just shows how little this idiot really knows about anything much less true freedom in this country. God help us people are slowly being dumbed down to the point of where they government and states what them to be. just think what it’s going to be like in 10 or 20 more years as more of us freedom loving people go by the way side of old age. just glad i’m one of them.
The Westgate is a third tier hotel one step above a flophouse. I stayed there one night and relocated as the room was filthy and service poor. Moreover it is in a deteriorating neighborhood. What most people don’t know is that Vegas hotels employ thousands of illegals. They cook your food, mix your drinks, clean your rooms and provide “security” which is all about protecting resort property because you sign away any recourse when you sign in. Most of the crime against guests, after the rip-offs you suffer at the computer games, is perpetrated by the illegals working for the resorts. They will steal you blind. Leave NOTHING of value in your rooms. Not even in the safes as they hacked those cracker boxes long ago.
Personally, I resent the aspect of “secret scanning” and the whole “can’t-bring-a-gun-here” mentality. Waltrip has more faces than a Marquis-cut diamond. He parades himself as a Second Ammendment supporter and a CCW holder, all the while foisting on his patrons some of the very things we all abhor as a, (supposedly), free people. He wants to filter out firearms on Westgate’s property, but not piss off the patrons to a point they’ll go elsewhere. Some folks will welcome the scans, having been lulled into a false sense of security, others will, no doubt, see it as an invasion of their privacy and a violation of some real or perceived right.
I hate to burst someone’s bubble, but rest assured someone will get a weapon of some sort into that resort if they so choose. Be it a firearm, a knife, a bludgeon or binary explosive, it WILL get in. If some deranged s.o.b., or group thereof, decides to rain havoc on the Westgate and it’s patrons, rest assured they’ll find a way. All Waltrip has assured is that the majority of Westgate’s guests will be defenseless and therefore fertile ground for some anarchist to plow. And, now they have a road map.
Personally, I don’t give a crap, I just won’t go there or anywhere else that I’d be denied my Second Amendment, or other rights. I don’t really care much for Vegas anyway, and if I feel the need to let down my thinning hair, I’ll just go someplace gun friendly. Problem solved.
As if this is going to stop False Flag events – as Vegas 100% tuned out to be, with OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE to prove just that.
Even here in the Democratic People’s Republic of California, a rented room is your (temporary) residence, and you may lawfully keep a weapon in your place of residence.
Security Theater…. Garbage in/Garbage out…. Remember to vote with your dollars….
Is it just me or did the largest mass shooting in our history fail to stay in the headlines for long. What are we not hearing about?
Because the REAL evidence of a False Flag event was very quickly uncovered, so best for MSM and politicians to just shut up and force their new, anti-gun laws through, based on “another mass-shooting”
How can you claim to be in the land of the free when you have to carry a weapon to defend yourself. If there are that many angry people in America there must be a reason. Perhaps it is because you are not as free as you think. Calling information fake news because you don’t agree smacks of authoritarianism. The world hopes America eventually finds the truth – freedom can’t be found at the end of a gun, either end.
You don’t _have to_ carry a weapon to defend yourself but, at the same time, you have an inborn _right_ to do so if you wish. Unlike other countries where the government forbids you from doing so. We’re citizens, they’re subjects. Freedom comes with the inherent dangers of letting untrustworthy people have the same freedoms/liberties you, yourself, have.
Not quite understanding your post, but rest assured; If you heard it from a politician or on MSM, then it’s a lie. Which is WHY they banned ‘real news’ – alt media – from any and all conferences and whatnot after the so-called ‘shooting’.
MSM stays with the script, asking only pre-approved questions. Alt-media asks uncomfortable questions and asks for explanations to absolutely implausible, impossible stories (9/11, Boston, Sandy Hoax).
Which is WHY this disappeared so quickly from MSM. Too many were getting too close to the truth.
And to answer your question, NO – this is NOT the land of the free, for as someone said; “If its’s not illegal, then it’s taxed”, but YES – freedom HAS been found at the end of a gun. There was a country that did it…what was it. Oh, yea. America.
Too bad we lost it.
I wonder if COO Waltrip gives up his gun when he comes to work? Does he rely solely on his security staff to keep him safe?
So here’s a question. You walk up to the front desk to check in, carrying your concealed weapon, and the clerk asks you if you are carrying a gun and you say no. Do they call you a liar and have security frisk you, violating your 4th Amendment rights? I should think a wise man with a good lawyer, would jump on this money making opportunity, if indeed they would do that.
Assuming you make to the check-in desk, and I don’t know Nevada. law, but like many states, I would guess the property owner can refuse service or ask you to leave if they discover it after the fact. If you refuse, property owner can call police and lodge a trespassing compliant. That’s how it is in VA.
As a general rule, and with few exceptions, I don’t patronage places that are gun free, even if I’m not carrying.
The Westgate bans firearms on property. All law-abiding gun owners and concealed carry should stay elsewhere. After the last incident, I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire city goes “gun free” zone.
Unlike the rest of the state, the county LV is in has been gun-unfriendly for years, with the city leading the way.
If the state didn’t preempt them, LV would have been gun-free for years.
I like the electromagnetic shielding idea. A gun-rights group could picket the Westgate and offer free shielding to incoming customers. Another idea: offer incoming customers pieces of metal pipe bent to resemble a gun – enough to overwhelm the system with false signals. Yet another: electromagnetic jamming equipment.
Serious thought should be given to some kind of counter-measures. It’s not just about one hotel. What happens when a Bloomberg or a Soros decides there needs to be “gun detectors” wherever they can legally put them. City streets, shopping malls, who knows?
Good for them! A business has a right to refuse to allow firearms on its premises and this seems like a good balance between security and safety and the kind of open access that Las Vegas is known for, much like the last time I was there during the SHOT Show in 2016.
Violent crimes in Las Vegas is raising and is above the national average. Your more likely to be victim of a violent crime in Vegas then in the entire state of Nevada.
That fact doesn’t appear to be a “good balance between safety and security.”
Right. That is why they are having to add these security measures, and those security measures seem like a good balance between safety and security – not the current status quo.
We agree, you and I, Sepp W.
No agreement here. I’m against “gun-free zones”. Period. All it manages to do is create yet another “soft-target”. Personally, I don’t have to worry about it because I’m going to do one of two things :
(1) carry anyway. I know I’m not going to be the next crazed mass shooter, but I won’t be a willing victim either.
(2) refuse to patronize ANY business that bans firearms. See how long they stay in business. In the meantime it’ll be a private, members only facility for the libtards/dumbocraps.
I’m sick and damn tired of progressive, enlightened, politically correct, candy-ass members of this once great nation. If WWll happened today, we’d be speaking German and salute’n a crazy little dictator because we’d lose. Lord help us all, but he helps them that helps themselves.
As opposed to the war we are fighting today, upon the conclusion of which we will be called to prayer five times a day and live under Sharia law.
“Gun free zone” = “interference-free, target-rich environment for disaffected loser and terrorists”. No thanks. Law abiding citizens should be allowed to carry their self-defense weapons anyplace they have any business being in.