Friday, February 8, 2013

TSA Week in Review: Disassembled Rifle Concealed in Two Bags at BOS

Disassembled Rifle Concealed in Two Bags – While resolving an alarm on checked baggage, officers at Boston Logan (BOS) discovered a fully disassembled 30-30 rifle concealed within the lining of the bag and taped to the straps. Massachusetts State Police responded and ran a check on the serial number of the rifle, revealing that it had been stolen. Police arrested the passenger on state charges. For the record, it is permissible to travel with firearms in your checked baggage as long as you have legal authority to possess the firearm and you adhere to these guidelines.


28 Firearms Discovered This Week – Of the 28 firearms, 22 were loaded and five had rounds chambered. One passenger in San Francisco had three firearms in his carry-on bag - two loaded pistols (.38 and .40 caliber) and an unloaded .40 caliber. Here are pictures of some of the firearms. See a complete list and more photos at the bottom of this post.

Grenade Discovered at LAS

Inert Ordnance and Grenades Etc. – We continue to find inerthand grenades and other weaponry on weekly basis. Please keep in mind that if an itemlooks like a realistic bomb, grenade, mine, etc., it is prohibited - real or not. When these items are found at a checkpoint or in checked baggage, they can cause significant delays. I know they are cool novelty items, but it is best not to take them on a plane. Read here and here on why inert items cause problems.


  • An inert grenade was discovered in a carry-on bag at Las Vegas (LAS).


Items in the Strangest Places –It’s important to check 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 possibly arrested by local law enforcement. Here are a few examples from this week where prohibited items were found in strange places.


  • A 3¼-inch knife was detected concealed inside a comb in the carry-on bag at Charleston (CHS).
  • A sword cane with a 15” blade was discovered at Houston (IAH).



Stun Guns –13 stun guns were discovered this week in a carry-on bags around the nation: Two at Atlanta (ATL), two at Denver (DEN), and one each at Branson (BBG), Casper (CPR), Charlotte (CLT), Fort Lauderdale (FLL), Jacksonville (JAX), Lebanon (LEB), Los Angeles (LAX), Minneapolis (MSP), and San Francisco (SFO).

What Not to Say at an Airport – Statements like these not only delay the people who said them but can also inconvenience many other passengers if the checkpoint or terminal has to be evacuated:


  • A Newark (EWR) passenger stated “I have a bomb in my bag” to one of our officers. She then went on to explain that she was just joking.


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…

Firearms Discovered This Week




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.

Bob Burns
TSA Blog Team

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http://blog.tsa.gov/2013/02/tsa-week-in-review-disassembled-rifle.html