On most Fridays, TSA’s blogger Bob Burns posts a tally of the number of guns (loaded and unloaded) caught during the prior week at US airport security checkpoints and gives a review of the forbidden, and often truly far-out, items TSA officers find.
Last week was no different. According to the TSA blog, last week 26 guns (only one unloaded!) were discovered along with at least seven stun guns, throwing stars, inert novelty grenades, fireworks and loads of knives.
(Photo courtesy TSA)
I am always entertained and a bit frightened by the TSA’s weekly round-up of items found at airport checkpoints. I know it’s a bit of a PR effort on the TSA’s part to show off all the wacky ways – and all the bizarre stuff – people put in their carry-on bags, but it works for me… Some of this stuff makes me very wary of my fellow passengers.
In the guns-not-gotten-on-board category, between June 22 and June 27, TSA officers found “just” 23 guns, 18 of them loaded. That’s down from other weeks.
On its blog, the TSA also shared details of some wacky ways people tried to smuggle prohibited stuff on-board. Someone at Tampa International Airport (TPA) tried to conceal a knife by putting it in a sock stuffed into an envelope with dolls. A passenger in Greensville/Spartanburg (GSP) hid a knife in a can of tobacco. And, my “favorite,” a passenger at Portland International Airport (PDX) tried to dump his .22 caliber pistol
in a potted plant instead of checking it with his luggage.
(Photo courtesy State Library of Queensland, via Flickr Commons)
Swords? Not in your carry-on.
The TSA’s Friday round-up of things found at airport security checkpoints is always mystifying, scary and entertaining.
Among the items nabbed between June 1 to June 7, 2012 were: 22 guns (18 of them loaded), swords hidden inside a guitar case and a cane, a multi-tool knife hidden in a thermos, Co2 distraction grenades and an inert detonator (whatever those are).
Among the illegal and prohibited items discovered on people during body scans: a punching weapon, strike anywhere matches, drugs, drug paraphernalia and a half full bottle of whiskey.
“And while it isn’t prohibited,” TSA’s Blogger Bob Burns wrote on the TSA Blog, “a passenger wearing a chastity belt alarmed the body scanner at one of our checkpoints. I’m sure you can imagine where an undergarment such as this might be a problem at a security checkpoint. Especially if there is no key.”
What did I tell you? Mysterious, scary and downright entertaining….
According this New York Post article, last Friday, on the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Port Authority officials at New York’s La Guardia airport arrested a 40-year old man who was catching a Delta flight to Atlanta while packing a fully loaded 9mm Smith & Wesson handgun in his carry-on bag.
Security officials reported that the man said he “simply forgot” the weapon was in his bag.
Scary? Yes. Surprising? Probably not for the folks who work security at those airports. The article includes a description of some of the other stuff snagged at the security checkpoints at New York’s LaGuardia and JFK airports, and at the Newark Liberty International Airport.
“The tonnage at Newark this year has included 12,302 flammable objects; and 43 travelers were stopped for trying to carry explosives.
At JFK, 1,328 tools were intercepted, and at La Guardia, 9,365 knives and blades were discovered in clothing and in carry-on bags.
Since January, 122 passengers at all three airports were stopped for carrying ammunition and gunpowder as they tried to board planes; 338 passengers were armed with bats, clubs and bludgeons; and travelers carried 1,602 knives and blades longer than three inches.”
Shifting rules and over-zealous staffers can trip up even the most checkpoint-savvy traveler. (Flip-flops on or off? Is mascara a liquid or a gel?)
But it may not be the TSA you have to worry about; watch out for other travelers.
So far in 2008, the TSA has discovered 519 guns – many of them loaded – in carry-on bags at security checkpoints. That figure doesn’t take into account weapons found over the past few weeks. According to the TSA Web site, 29 firearms were found two weeks ago, and 23 were discovered last week.
The most common explanation from travelers? “Oops, I forgot that was in there.”
Find out what else shows up at airport checkpoints and learn about the new rules for “checkpoint friendly” laptop bags in my Well-Mannered Traveler column posted today on MSNBC.com.
(Column illustration by MSNBC.com’s Duane Hoffman)
On Monday, a federal judge upheld a gun ban at Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson International Airport.
The gun rights group GeorgiaCarry.org is trying to convince the judge that the non-secure parts of the airport are included in a new Georgia law allowing people to carry licensed firearms in state parks, restaurants, and on public transportation.
U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob is thinking it over and may not make a final ruling for several months. In the meantime, he’s letting stand the city’s declaration of the airport as a “gun-free zone.”
The gun rights group is calling this a temporary setback. City officials are asking the TSA for backup.
Read more about the issue and the ruling in this Associated Press story.
I spent a lot of time chatting with TSA folks last week while working on an article about guns and other prohibited items travelers keep trying to take through airport security checkpoints.
To be honest, it gave me nightmares.
Especially after a TSA spokesperson sent me a photo of a shipment of snakes discovered at one airport (I didn’t dare open that attachment) and this photo of a display board of “relinquished” weapons.
(Photo courtesy TSA)
I know of two airports – Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport – that have exhibits like this at their security checkpoints.
Anyone know of others?
Actor and comedian Jerry Lewis was on his way to Detroit last Friday when he got nabbed at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas for having a gun in his carry-on baggage.
Maybe he was really on his way to Flint.
According to the Flint Journal, at Flint’s Bishop International Airport recently a “wayward shot” flew by some workers when “a public safety officer at the airport was shooting at a deer that had gotten onto the airport grounds.”
No one was hurt, but the Journal reports that the airport is “developing new rules on how and when wildlife will be cleared from the airport property — including possibly keeping shooters farther away from buildings and limiting shoots during local business hours.”
Good idea.
