Thread: TSA Week in Review: 25 Firearms Discovered This Week – 21 Loaded

Friday, May 3, 2013

TSA Week in Review: 25 Firearms Discovered This Week – 21 Loaded

Loaded Gun (ATL)

25 Firearms Discovered This Week – of the 25 firearms, 21 were loaded and six had rounds chambered. See a complete list and more photos at the bottom of this post.


.45 Caliber Pistol and four 4 Magazines Concealed in Cassette Deck - It’s permissible to travel with firearms and ammunition in checked baggage as long as the proper guidelines are followed. Pro-tip: Concealing your firearm in a cassette deck isn’t one of the proper guidelines.

A Gun and Four Magazines Were Concealed Inside This Cassette Deck

Stun Gun (ICT)

Stun Guns – Nine stun guns were discovered this week in carry-on bags around the nation. Four were discovered at Denver (DEN), two at Sacramento (SMF), and the others at Lincoln (LNK), Phoenix (PHX), and Wichita (ICT).


Items in the Strangest Places –It’s important to examine your bags prior to traveling to ensure no prohibited items are inside. If a prohibited item is discovered in your bag, you could be cited and quite possibly arrested by local law enforcement. Here are a few examples from this week where prohibited items were found in strange places.

• Two hairbrush daggers were discovered this week at Kahului (OGG) and Phoenix (PHX). These daggers might come in handy if you find yourself in a “tangle”, but there’s no need to bring them into the cabin of an aircraft.

Brush Daggers

Miscellaneous Prohibited Items - In addition to all of the other prohibited items we find weekly, our Officers also regularly find firearm components, realistic replica firearms, bb and pellet guns, Airsoft guns, brass knuckles, ammunition, batons, and a lot of sharp pointy things -- to mention a few…

Push Dagger (PHX), Hunting Knife (AUS), Throwing Stars & Knives (SAN)

Firearms Discovered This Week

Discovered at (L-R)IAD, IND, BHM, IAH, IND, AUS, SHV

Discovered at (L-R) HOU, GPT, FLL, RDM, PBI, CPR

You can travel with your firearms in checked baggage, but they must first be declared to the airline. You can go here for more details on how to properly travel with your firearms. Firearm possession laws vary by state and locality. Travelers should familiarize themselves with state and local firearm laws for each point of travel prior to departure.


Unfortunately these sorts of occurrences are all too frequent which is why we talk about these finds. Sure, it’s great to share the things that our officers are finding, but at the same time, each time we find a dangerous item, the throughput is slowed down and a passenger that likely had no ill intent ends up with a citation or in some cases is even arrested. The passenger can face a penalty as high as $7,500.00. This is a friendly reminder to please leave these items at home. Just because we find a prohibited item on an individual does not mean they had bad intentions, that's for the law enforcement officer to decide. In many cases, people simply forgot they had these items.

*In order to provide a timely weekly update, I compile my data from a preliminary report. The year-end numbers will vary slightly (increase) from what I report in the weekly updates. However, any monthly, midyear, or end-of-year numbers TSA provides on this blog or elsewhere will not be estimates.


If you haven’t seen it yet, make sure you check out our post highlighting the dangerous, scary, and downright unusual items our officers found in 2012. The 2011 list can be found here.


Bob Burns
TSA Blog Team
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http://blog.tsa.gov/2013/05/tsa-week-in-review-25-firearms.html

A.T.F., D.E.A., F.B.I., I.C.E., U.S. Marshals news @ http://www.alipac.us/f19/fbi%92s-top...2013-a-277713/