Any one of those protestors could have brought in a bomb. They weren't exactly going through metal detectors. Given that a pipe bomb was found at the RNC, and a suspicious package of some sort at the DNC, I'm surprised someone didn't try. I wonder how worried security there was about explosive devices and weighing whether to open fire.

Many of them were also carrying guns. No idea who thought it'd be a good idea to just stand down and let them in, but my guess is that making martyrs of them would push us closer to something like the beginning of a civil war.

And yet they didn’t. Consider the implications of that

We're at the stage where we're giving out merit awards for not bombing a seat of government after having stormed it?

There were two IEDs discovered in the capital today - neither in the state house but still... super bad for security.

One of those was at the RNC, I haven't heard of the other one yet.

There was someone arrested with materials for Molotov cocktails.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/pipe-bomb-rnc...

I believe there were full on bombs found, as in IEDs with electronic parts.

At least according to NYT[1] it seems like the police being outmatched was rather intentional.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/06/us/washington-dc-pro...

The police seem to have stood down because they are sympathetic. There's video circulating of the rioters being let through barricades by the officers manning them. I'll say it's plausible they were not prepared to resist the crowd, but the way it looks is like they wanted to participate.

Nothing went wrong. The police overwhelmingly support Trump, they were complicit.