Guns and airports don’t mix, but people still try to bring them on planes
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Version 0 of 1. The unanswered question is why people keep carrying guns — very often loaded — through airport security checkpoints, decades after the word went out that guns are verboten carry-0n items. The ban pre-dates the rise of terrorism in the last 20 years, dating back to the days when people unhappy with the United States were hijacking airplanes to Cuba. More than anything else, the 2,653 firearms that people tired to carry onto planes last year may simply be a reflection of how many people carry guns as a matter of routine. “The things people bring to airports never really surprise me,” said Rod Allison, the Transportation Security Administration’s assistant administrator for law enforcement and director of the Federal Air Marshal Service. “You just shake your head.” [Connecting the dots is anti-terrorism center’s mission] The number of firearms that were caught in 2015 was a record, up from 2,212 the previous year, and 83 percent of the guns intercepted at 236 airports last year were loaded. The question of what to do when someone is stopped with a gun falls to local police, since TSA isn’t a law enforcement agency. In most cases, if police are persuaded the gun carrier simply forgot the weapon was there, the gun is confiscated and the passenger allowed to fly. In some cases, however, the would-be flier is booked for a weapons violation. About one-quarter of the guns were intercepted at airports in regions of the country where the gun culture is strong. There were 153 at Dallas-Fort Worth; 144 at Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta; 100 at George Bush in Houston; 90 at Denver International; and 73 at Phoenix International. “The transport of firearms by commercial air in carry-on bags represents a threat to the safety and security of air travelers,” said TSA Administrator Peter V. Neffenger. “Through increased training in detection methods, our officers are becoming more adept at intercepting these prohibited items.” It’s legal to fly with a gun if it’s unloaded and properly secured in a checked bag. TSA said it screened more than 1.9 million passengers a day in 2015, a total of 708 million passengers, and 40.7 million more passengers than in 2014. |