Talk:Shouting fire in a crowded theater

Hitchens
Hitchens is an idiot. It's absurd to cite his infantile rants in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.79.153.6 (talk) 13:33, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Untitled
hi. i made an edit. it's not pretty. might not be appropriate, but i think it is significant

Perhaps someone may consider disambiguating this article and [Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theatre]. It might even be better to just redirect the other one here. It would of course consign my very modest first attempt at editing an article to the trashbin of [history] :(, but this one seems to cover the topic better than the other. I'd do it myself, but at this stage of the game it's beyond what I feel comfortable doing.  Puck 00:31, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * They need to be merged. A merge notice should be placed.  -Husnock 01:11, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The full and more accurate expression is actually "falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater". If I go to a movie see a fire and inform people of it, I'd actually be a hero. Conversely, if there is no fire, claiming there was one would cause a stampede and people would get hurt.

Building codes
The article states: (This ruling preceded the adoption of building codes, and theatergoers faced a real possibility of being unable to escape the building in an emergency due to narrow aisles and jammed doors.) Does this mean to suggest that the court would have ruled differently today? I hope not! Even with building codes, the dangers of trampling or of not getting out of the building are still all too real. I'd like to remove this line. Comments? --Keeves 18:01, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

NPOV
The section on libertarian views towards this seems to violate WP:NPOV, since there aren't any other modern competing views listed. Perhaps this section could be expanded on?

--Tjohns  &#9998; 00:09, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

This is about tag cleanup. As all of the tags are more than a year old, there is no current discussion relating to them, and there is a great deal of editing done since the tags were placed, or in some cases it's clear there is a consensus, they will be removed. This is not a judgement of content. If there is cause to re-tag, then that of course may be done, with the necessary posting of a discussion as to why, and what improvements could be made. Better yet, edit the article yourself with the improvements in place. This is only an effort to clean out old tags, and permit them to be updated with current issues if warranted.Jjdon (talk) 00:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Fraud
I removed the claim that
 * Rick Cohen has criticized that shouting "fire" is an issue of fraud, not an issue of free speech, and fraud laws should prevent it.  (http://www.ncrp.org/downloads/RPArchives/RP-Spring2003-Free_Speech_or_Fraud.pdf)

for two reasons: First, Cohen's article is about alleged fraud underlying telemarketing. The phrase "shouting fire" appears only to underline that not everything is protected by the first amendment (shouting fire is not protected, fraud is not protected). Secondly, fraud is a deception made for personal gain; the point in forbidding to falsely shout fire in a crowded theater is not the illicit gain that the perpetrator may have, but rather the potential damage his/her action can cause. --The very model of a minor general (talk) 10:48, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

wow, that criticism by the libertarian is stupid. can i remove it?... if an action causes harm to other people, then the action is under the jurisdiction of the government, not the private owner of the theater. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.45.105.119 (talk) 03:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Barnsley Public Hall disaster
No one yelled "Fire!" during this disaster. Why is it under that heading?76.69.49.219 (talk) 03:16, 20 November 2009 (UTC)Caroline Good question. I'll remove it. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 07:33, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Changing the name of this page
I think the name of this page is a little too specific, and goes against the fact that the Italian Hall disaster occured in a non-theater building. The information in this page would probably be easier to access if it was moved to a page titled "False emergency alerts" or something like that, and the new page can include similar scenerios like yelling "BOMB" at an airport or "GUN" at school, so we don't need a page for each of these examples. Thegargoylevine (talk) 15:48, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, there actually is a page called False Alarm. Perhaps we can move this page there? Thegargoylevine (talk) 15:51, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The article is about the phrase, not about false alerts in general. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 04:50, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Misquote?
Should the saying be really considered a misquote? It omits the word "falsely", but I'd argue that it's implied - obviously, truthfully calling fire in a crowded theater isn't a crime. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 04:50, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Removed Jacob Hornberger Libertarian article
I've removed the discussion of Jacob Hornberger's article from the Criticism section. It's not relevant to this article at all, and was only added (years ago) in an attempt to push a Libertarian agenda. Alereon (talk) 12:47, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Then you need to remove the reference to the rabid Libertarian Hitchens, who rants in an infantile manner that he is cleverer than Holmes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.79.153.6 (talk) 13:36, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Imminent Danger
How is "distributing fliers in opposition to a military draft" of imminent danger to anyone? I'm going to delete it if there's no source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.131.189.44 (talk) 21:03, 14 December 2011 (UTC)


 * See Schenck v. United States. One does not have to agree with that US Supreme Court decision, but we cannot hide the fact that this is precisely the case for which the phrase was coined in the first place, according to the article. This is not just some random example pulled out of the air (such as "disturbing friars" or "claiming someone is a terrorist" from your previous edits). It is the prime example, without which this wikipedia article would not even exist. Whether or not it matches our own personal POV in 2011 of what constitutes an imminent danger is irrelevant. Ramsey2006 (talk) 15:30, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Article needs expansion
Obviously, you have no freedom of speech while being in a theater. Even talking aloud about the weather might get you thrown out, and rightly so. That's not some libertarian fringe theory, though Rothbard explains it more clearly. This should be in the criticism section. Joepnl (talk) 23:17, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Move proposal
I propose moving this article to Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater because it contains what is being shouted in quotation marks, making the phrase more easily understood &mdash;  Tha† emo over †here (talk)  16:33, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Larson's research
Carlton Larson of UC Davis has just published a very nice article tracing the history of the phrase, examining the question of where Holmes got the idea in the first place, and why it's so often truncated. Anyone want to try using Larson's paper as a source? Or should we instead go for the sources Larson cites? DS (talk) 19:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)