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Car Alarm Land Mines

Protect the border of your country - nonlethally
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Get millions of very loud car alarms -- but without the cars -- and bury them just beneath the surface (with vent holes to allow the sound to escape).

Arrange these alarms in a dense strip 300 yards wide, that goes all around the area you want to protect.

Ordinary land mines require direct pressure from above to detonate. But the Car Alarm Land Mine (CALM) will be ringing as soon as an opposing army gets within a mile of it.

This wall of sound should drive any sane enemy to retreat, and drop any slightly unstable enemy on the spot. Even tanks will be disabled, as the gunmen on board will be annoyed and distracted by the horrendous racket. By the time the tank crosses the 300-yard field, the gunmen will be either deaf or cranky, and unable to engage in effective combat.

Advantages: Cheap, non-lethal (well, sometimes), and if car alarms ever get banned in New York City, there will be a free supply of millions of these things, which will finally be useful for something.

phundug, Aug 12 2003

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       But my dream job involves a machinegun. Waaaaaah. (Shakes fist angrily, just like RT)
thumbwax, Aug 12 2003
  

       Didn't this used to be the Phil Specter Wall of Sound, or something?
DrCurry, Aug 12 2003
  

       yes
SystemAdmin, Aug 12 2003
  

       <absterge orgasmatron/>Yes! Yes! Yes!</absterge orgasmatron>
thumbwax, Aug 12 2003
  

       //Car Alarm Land Mine // will be drowned out by the rumble of tanks
FloridaManatee, Aug 13 2003
  

       [fogfreak] Yes, there are lots of them. The easy solution would be to declare everyone legal who can find a legal job (bank robbers etc. would remain illegal). - But what country would do that? Unions would loose all leverage and wages would hit rock bottom.
kbecker, Aug 14 2003
  

       I was thinking more along the lines of a home security product. Plant them around your house and turn them on at night.
mat334, Jan 27 2005
  

       use earplugs. bone.
sninctown, Apr 14 2005
  

       //wages would hit rock bottom.//   

       For the immigrants, they're already there. Meanwhile, we buy lettuce, beef, chicken, tomatoes, oranges and grapes on the cheap because Big Agro can get (basically) slaves from the nearest country. (Canada, too--that is definitely not a safe border, in part because all of our focus is on the Mexican one! Do you know how much weed and methamphetamine comes through that border every day? Particularly on the Western edge.)   

       Big Agro hires undocumented immigrants because then they don't have to record their wages, [lack of] benefits, etc. anywhere--they can just give them piss poor salaries and work them to the bone until they get caught, which they don't. Making those who have crossed illegally, legal, wouldn't solve the problem because the farms would fire them and bring in a new batch of undocumented immigrants.   

       If you leave a sugarcube on the table, an ant will come out and nip at it, and if you don't stop that ant then soon a whole bunch of ants will descend upon your table and devour the sugar. The 'hormigas' (figuratively speaking) come here for their sugar (jobs). The only way to stop the hormigas is to take away the sugar: crack down not on illegal immigration, but on the hiring of illegal immigrants. Make some huge busts and throw ConAgra, Iowa Beef, Tyson, etc. into the water. The industry will get the picture.
disbomber, Apr 14 2005
  
      
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