Guns

DFW statement on shooting inside the airport

Guns, , ,

Here’s the text of the statement sent out by Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Friday evening about the shooting that took place inside Terminal C:

DFW Airport Department of Public Safety is investigating a shooting incident that took place inside the Airport’s Terminal C at about 5:00PM this evening.

The shooting involved one of two law enforcement agency officers from the Tulsa County (Oklahoma) Sheriff’s Department who were transporting a prisoner through DFW Airport. The prisoner got into an altercation with one of the officers inside a restroom in Terminal C, with two shots fired from the officer’s service weapon.

The suspect then fled the restroom and ran from the departure area of the terminal to the public side, a distance of about 100 feet before being apprehended by the Tulsa County officers near the C-10 checkpoint.

Both the injured officer and the wounded prisoner were transported to Parkland Hospital in Dallas for treatment of injuries. The second officer assisting with the prisoner transfer also went to the hospital to continue the transport detail.

No one else was injured.

Flight operations at the Airport have been minimally affected. Several arriving flights scheduled to arrive in nearby gates were sent to other gates at DFW. Departures were not impacted.

The restroom at Gate C-8 where the shooting occurred and the public area around the C-10 checkpoint where the suspect was apprehended remain closed for investigation. The checkpoint will reopen tomorrow morning.

No gates are affected.

Bets? How many firearms will TSA find at airports?

Guns, , ,

ATL GUNS

Each Friday, before I close my office and head to Happy Hour, I check the TSA Blog for the Week in Review posting of the number of firearms (loaded and unloaded) and other prohibited items (inert explosives, big knives, anti-tank weapons, etc.) discovered at airport checkpoints.

You should too.

The blog (and TSA’s Instagram account) offers an informal course on the wide variety of items TSA deems too dangerous to be allowed on airplanes, yet which travelers continue to bring to airports.

TSA find _ Keychain is actually a punching weapon prohibited on planes by TSA

The numbers don’t spike on particular holidays or on Mondays but the tally of firearms, especially, keeps going up.

On June 4, 2014, for example, TSA reported that 18 firearms were discovered in carry-on bags around the country, breaking the previous record of 13 found in one day, set in 2013.

In early November, another record was broken. With two months still to go in the year, the number of firearms discovered at checkpoints had reached 1,855.

That blew 2014’s tally past the overall 2013 total of 1,813. By the close of business on December 15, this year’s tally had grown to 2,097.

“I think the rate is increasing because more and more people are carrying [weapons] throughout the country. It can actually be difficult for people who carry all the time because the gun becomes an extension of them, just like their cell phone and wallet,” said Jeff Price, author of Practical Aviation Security.

“Oops, I forgot that was in there,” is the most common explanation given by passengers found with firearms in a carry-on bag. But there are people, like the guy nabbed this week at JFK Airport with parts of a disassembled .22 caliber firearm hidden inside a PlayStation 2 console, who certainly know what they’re toting. “Some of these people are just tools trying to get one over on TSA and the system, but there are also those who may be affiliated with terrorist groups that decide to test the system to see what they can get through,” said Price.

TSA_GiantScissors

Thanks to ever-more-sophisticated technology, TSA is confident it is catching 100 percent of all the firearms coming through checkpoints. But Todd Curtis, founder of AirSafe.com, pegs the find rate at closer to 90 percent.

“The technology TSA has isn’t perfect,” said Curtis, “But in most cases, if someone is dense enough to try to take a weapon through the checkpoint they’ll be caught.”

Whenever TSA does spot a firearm in a carry-on bag at a checkpoint, the screening process stops until law enforcement responds and retrieves the weapon. And it’s local laws, not the TSA, that determine if any criminal charges are filed against a passenger.

Criminal charges or not, passengers found with firearms at airport checkpoints are subject to civil penalties, ranging from $1,500 up to $11,000. In 2013, TSA assessed nearly $1.7 million in civil penalties for firearms discovered in carry-on bags nationwide.

What happens to the firearms also depends on local laws. While local law enforcement allows TSA to photograph firearms (and other prohibited items) discovered at checkpoints, “TSA doesn’t take possession of any firearms,” said TSA spokesman Ross Feinstein, “Local law enforcement might confiscate the weapon as evidence or give it back the passenger to return it to their home or to put it in their vehicle.”

Beyond firearms, of course, TSA officers encounter an extremely wide variety of other prohibited items at airport checkpoints, including machetes, hatchets, swords, giant scissors, brass knuckles, cannonballs, bear repellant and, this past October, an unloaded cannon.

“Maybe someone has a lucky inert grenade they brought back from some war, or a nice cane was given to them and they forgot that the thing is actually a sword,” said Price, “It’s the people that are carrying stuff like chainsaws that make me wonder.”

(This story first appeared on the Runway Girl Network in a slightly different version.)

Travel Tidbits: guns, billboards and ugly sweaters

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Guns at airports

PIT Firearm

Courtesy TSA

The TSA’s Week in Review is always a fascinating and somewhat frightening read.

In the latest issue, for example, we learned that 28 firearms were found at airport checkpoints nationwide this week – a tally that is not that unusual.

Of those 28 firearms, 25 were loaded and eight had rounds chambered. And among the loaded firearms was one discovered strapped to the ankle of a passenger at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT).

I wonder if that passenger gave the excuse most people do when found with firearms at airports: “Oops, I forgot that was there.”

British Airways billboards: how do they do that?



British Airways is rolling out video billboards that show children pointing to the sky whenever a British Airlines plane flies by. The airline says there’s some sort of “digital “wizardry” involved that allows the billboards to “know” the flight number and city a plane is arriving from and display it on the screen.

The first billboard was installed in Chiswick, a suburb west of London. Bustling Picadilly Circus gets one as well.

Ugly Sweaters

And if you’re headed to Portland, Oregon this season – perhaps to the presentation about my new book Hidden Treasures: What Museums Can’t or Won’t Show You on December 6 at St. Johns Booksellers -then keep an eye out for downtown sculptures that will be “yarn bombed” by local fiber artists.

Portland ugly sweater

More than a dozen statues are scheduled to get yarn bombed this season as the city goes a little knit-crazy with sweater -themed events and ugly sweater promotions at several hotels.

At the Mark Spencer, for example, any guest wearing an ugly sweater at check-in will automatically receive a free room upgrade. And at the Heathman Hotel, ugly sweaters will be issued to all dogs checking in with their people.

More details about visiting Portland here.

The LAX Shooting and guns at airports

Airports, Guns, , ,

Friday night the details of how – and why – a man showed up at Los Angeles International Airport with a rifle and shot his way through Terminal 3 are still being pieced together.

A lot is already known.

The man doing the shooting has been identified as 23-year-old Los Angeles resident Paul Anthony Ciancia.

A TSA officer – 39-year-old Gerardo I. Hernandez – was killed and perhaps a half dozen other people, including two other TSA officers, were injured.

And thousands of passengers at LAX and other airports around the country had a travel day seriously disrupted.

More than 700 flights were canceled or delayed. Close to 50 were diverted to other airports.

And pretty much everyone is shocked and freaked out.

Here’s a link to a story from by Brian Sumers and Larry Altman that does a really good job of describing the events of the day. Sumers was one of the reporters on-site and tweeting from LAX most of the day.

A lot more details will surely be revealed in the days ahead and we’ll be horrified by them all.

In the meantime, as it does most every Friday afternoon, the TSA released a tally of the number of guns found – but luckily not fired – at airport security checkpoints this week.

This week 29 guns were discovered at airport security checkpoints. 27 were loaded. 9 had rounds chambered.

And, as we know, one loaded rifle was used to wreak havoc at LAX airport.

TSA GUNS OCTOBER

Courtesy TSA

 

Not TSA-approved. Ever

Guns, History, Museums, , , ,

Multi-bladed folding knife 3

The TSA’s plan to allow passengers to once again carry small knives on board airplanes got nixed a while back.

But even if it had gone forward the knife pictured above would never had made the, uh, cut.

Made around 1880 as an advertising item for a store window in New York City, the knife’s 100 “blades” include a cigar cutter, a button hook, a tuning fork and pencils.

Look closely and you’ll even spot a .22 pinfire revolver.

That tiny revolver is why the knife is on display at the Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming.

The knife is on loan to the museum until 2015 along with 63 other historically significant firearms from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, which began collecting firearms in 1876.

Along with the many-bladed knife, the items on loan include a rifle made for Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia with a velvet cheek piece so that her royal face would not rest directly on the stock.

Catherine the Great rifle 2

(All images courtesy the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center, via Buffalo Bill Center of the West)

Guns at airports. Way too many at Atlanta airport

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ATL GUNS

The TSA discovered more than 1500 guns at airport checkpoints last year, and 100 of those were found in the carry-on bags of passengers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

In fact, according to a press notice the airport sent out on Wednesday, during 2012 more firearms were confiscated at ATL than at any other airport. This year ATL leads the pack as well, with 67 firearms found so far.

That’s not the list the airport wants to be leading, so on Thursday airport officials and representatives held a press conference/refresher course on the right and wrong ways to travel with firearms and the legal consequences for violating the federal and local laws.

“If you attempt to bring a gun through these checkpoints, you will be breaking federal law, and you will be arrested,” said Hartsfield-Jackson General Manager Louis Miller, who explained that violators will miss their flight, be taken to jail and be subject to prosecution and fines up to $7,500.

Want to see what kinds  of – and how many – guns are found at this airport and others each week? The TSA Blog presents a weekly review of the firearms (including a count of those found loaded and chambered) and other prohibited items discovered.

The list of what people simply ‘forget’ they have in the carry-on bags is often quite alarming.

You’ll see.

 

TSA Week in Review – bonus edition

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Everyone needs a break or an actual vacation in the summer time.

Even Bob Burns, the TSA employee who puts together the weekly round-up on the TSA blog of all the firearms, stun guns, knives and miscellaneous other items on the prohibited items list that are discovered on passengers and in their carry-on at airport security checkpoints.

I don’t know for sure if Blogger Bob was at the beach last week, but I do know that last week there was no Week in Review on the TSA blog.

And I missed it. The blog is a bit terrifying because so many people either try to sneak loaded guns and other pretty dangerous items onto airplanes or they carry those things around with them everyday and just forget that they have those things with them. I’m not sure what’s worse.

The report is back now with two week’s worth of ‘findings,’ including 77 firearms, of which 69 were loaded and 21 had rounds chambered.

MCO firearm

Courtesy TSA

Also found: 27 stun guns, a cane sword, knives, brass knuckles and a bunch of cocaine hidden inside candles.

You can see all the details – and some photos – on the TSA Blog

 

Travel Tidbits: Guns at airports + travel contests

Airports, Contests, Guns,

A little bit of this and that..

As more and more groups come out in opposition to the TSA’s impending rule changes about allowing small knives and some other previously prohibited items back onto planes as carry-ons, TSA chief John Pistole said the agency is sticking to its guns about the change in its ruling about knives.

TSA GUN

From the TSA Blog – just one of the 20 loaded guns found at airport checkpoints this week.

In the always entertaining – and often shocking – TSA Week in Review report, TSA blogger Bob Burns reports that this week 21 guns were found at airport checkpoints around the country. 20 of those guns were loaded and seven of those guns had rounds chambered.

Vermeer Woman in Blue Reading a Letter

KLM shared the news that it has been flying Vermeer’s Woman in Blue Reading a Letter to various museums around the world lately and to celebrate the painting’s return to the Rijksmuseum, the airline is having a contest to give away a trip for two to Amsterdam in April, when the Rijksmuseum is set to reopen.

And, while we’re talking about contests, American Airlines has a new contest with prizes that include business class trips for two on several new routes, including Dallas/Fort Worth to Seoul, Chicago to Dusseldorf and Dallas/Fort Worth to Lima.

Virgin America also kicked off a contest this week to promote flights between Newark (EWR) and both San Francisco (SFO) and Los Angeles (LAX). Enter the Fly Like a Boss contest by April 1st to get 25% off a flight to Newark Airport and a chance to be part of the airline’s April 9th launch party in Newark, which, they promise, includes a chance to hang out on an aircraft with Mashable CEO & founder Pete Cashmore and Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson.

Guns at airports

Airports, Guns,

(Guns at the Airport: TSA Catching Firearms at Record Pace is my first story for AOL Travel. An excerpt from the story is below. More to come. )

TSA Stuffed Animal

Firearms top the list of items passengers are prohibited from taking past airport security checkpoints and onto airplanes. Yet, during 2012 that didn’t stop travelers from trying to get more than 1,500 handguns and other firearms past Transportation Security Administration officers at U.S. airports.

According to the TSA, last year 1,543 firearms — 1,215 (78%) of them loaded – were discovered in carry-on bags at checkpoints at 199 of the nation’s more than 450 commercial airports.

Most of the firearms discovered were handguns. One gun was found inside a hollowed out book at the Honolulu International Airport. A dissembled gun (and ammunition) was found hidden inside three stuffed animals at Providence T.F. Green Airport in Rhode Island. And while some people certainly try to sneak guns past checkpoints, most travelers caught with firearms at airports claim they simply forgot they had the weapon with them.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (where in 2008 officials tried – and failed – to have the entire airport declared a gun-free zone) holds the number one spot for 2012 on the list of “Top 5 Airports for Gun Discoveries” posted on the TSA’s blog. During 2012, 95 firearms were discovered at the ATL checkpoint.

Other airports on the “Top 5” list include Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (80 firearms), Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (54 firearms), Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (52 firearms) and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (42 firearms found).

In response to the Newtown school shootings, President Barack Obama has put new gun control laws on the table. But Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor at the UCLA School of Law and the author of “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” says he hasn’t heard any new proposals for banning guns in the pre-security areas of airports.

“People are talking about more broad-based types of laws,” said Winkler, “But if there was a mass shooting in a non-secure area of an airport, you’d hear it being discussed.”

In the meantime, TSA continues its efforts to keep firearms (and other prohibited items) from passing through airport checkpoints.

In the first two weeks of January 2013, 49 firearms were discovered in carry-on bags at U.S. airport checkpoints, including one handgun at the Atlanta airport and two at Phoenix Sky Harbor.

During the first two weeks of 2012, “only” 38 firearms were spotted in carry-on bags at airport checkpoints.

(For the full version of this story see Guns at the Airport: TSA Catching Firearms at Record Pace on AOL Travel.)

(Photo courtesy TSA)

 

FCC eases up on in-flight Internet & TSA finds more guns

Guns, Wi-Fi, , ,

Some end-of-the-year tidbits for air travelers:

gogowifi

On Friday, December 28, 2013, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued some new rules designed to “speed the deployment of  Internet services onboard aircraft.”

In its release, the FAA explained that, since 2001, it has been authorizing companies to offer in-flight broadband service on an ad hoc basis. It will now allow airlines to “test systems that meet FCC standards, establish that they do not interfere with aircraft systems, and get FAA approval…up to 50 percent faster, enhancing competition in an important sector of the mobile telecommunications market in the United States and promoting the widespread availability of Internet access to aircraft passengers.”

Spokane Airport TSA

And, as the TSA winds up the year, the ever-shocking and entertaining TSA Blog reports in its Week in Review that this week “only” sixteen guns (nine of them loaded) were discovered at airport checkpoints. That’s on the low side for the weekly gun finds, but clueless travelers were also nabbed this week for trying to take hand grenades, razors and other weaponry through the checkpoints. And, as the folks at Skift reported earlier this week, this year TSA discovered more than 1,500 guns at airport checkpoints, a new record for the agency.

Are more people traveling armed, or are more armed people traveling and simply “forgetting” that they’ve got loaded guns in their purse or carry-on bag?