This says it all about the world we live in today.Excaliber wrote: Welcome to security theater.
Security Guards, TSA, even actual police officers to an extent.
If you asked most people what a LEO's job was, they would probably say something like 'To protect me and my family", which is incorrect.
The job of the police is to protect and serve 'The Public' at large, not any one individual or family.
They do this by mostly catching criminals AFTER they have committed one or more crimes, and occasionally during the execution of one.
Neighborhood patrols by officers are mostly another aspect of 'Security Theater', or making the public feel protected. It may fool some criminals as well, but the 15 seconds of an officer driving by your house every day is actually pretty worthless for the other 23 hours and 45 seconds of the day.
In order to catch, and put away a Murderer/Rapist/etc, and therefore protect the public from them.... they have to kill/rape/etc someone first.
Not ragging on LEO's, they do their job to the best of their ability. Until they can read minds and know where, when, what, and to whom someone is going to do something to before they do it, they will never be able to perfectly protect any individual.