Quote Originally Posted by poop
But their standards would have to slip so low that even a mug like me can instantly recognise they're screwing up in a big way.
So you're saying that you, a civilian on the ground drinking a beer, can tell if a sniper is looking where he should be looking? You might see a fat donut eating town cop aimlessly scanning rooftops from the ground and you can think "the fuck is this guy doing" but you're not going to be able to tell what a sniper is and isn't doing.

If you're an alert guy not drinking beer, you might be the guy telling fattie there's someone on the rooftop, you might see someone acting suss and think "why is he not drawing attention?" but most people are just oblivious to any sort of threat. If I saw someone with a range finder, I wouldn't know what I was even looking at. Would you? Would I consider it suspicious? Probably not, I'd probably just think he's doing something with his phone or is a blogger with a camera or some shit.

If I saw someone on a rooftop at such an event, obviously that's as big a red flag as you can get without seeing a gun or hearing someone shout "Allah Akbar". But that seems to me the only obvious security failing that you'd expect the majority of people to notice.

They put blanks in his gun and the real shots came from somewhere else.
Ok this is plausible. Still somewhat absurd, but no more so than anything else I guess.

Why would it require half of them to be on it?
Well I wasn't being literal with the word "half", I'm just splitting the team into "in on it" and "not in on it", doesn't neccesaily have to be equal size groups. I know "half" has a very precise definition but it is a word commonly used in a looser sense.

Complacency is not completely absurd. I'd wager wars have happened because of unbelievable human complacency. Certainly major disasters have, like Chernobyl.