[Rick Lee]

Anytime the Homeland Security threat level is raised they always send cops down into the Metro stations with machine guns. It's the most ridiculous, feel-good, do-nothing measure I can imagine. What the hell good is a machine gun gonna do anyone on the subway platform, where the biggest risk is a suicide bomber or someone placing nerve gas in a car like happened in Japan about 15 yrs. ago? I can see why the canines might help, if they're actually there for sniffing out bomb materials. But machine guns? C'mon. Is that supposed to make someone feel safer?

One time I was on the Metro heading west in Virginia above ground, where the track parallels I-66. We were moving at about the pace of the car traffic next to us and we got next to a motorcade (pretty common in the DC area). No idea who the VIP was, but I was watching the whole thing very closely and in one of the Suburbans the rear windows were down and I could see the guy staring right back at me with an M4 just below the window. Now that kind of security detail might call for such a gun. But walking around the subway? What a joke.