Record Number Of Guns Seized In 2019 At U.S. Airports

The Transportation Security Administration issued a statement this week announcing a record number of guns (the vast majority loaded) were seized at airport checkpoints in the U.S. in 2019. From NPR:

TSA announced that its officers seized 4,432 guns at checkpoints last year — the most in the agency’s 18-year history. It also says that 87% of those guns (some 3,855) were loaded.

“The continued increase in the number of firearms that travelers bring to airport checkpoints is deeply troubling,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said in a statement Wednesday. “There is a proper way to travel safely with a firearm. First and foremost, it should be unloaded,” Pekoske said. “Then it should be packed in a hard-sided locked case, taken to the airline check-in counter to be declared, and checked.”

Nationwide, TSA says it caught firearms at 278 airports. That includes, as NPR reported in July, a missile launcher found in a Texas man’s luggage at the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

Even if a traveler has a concealed weapon permit, firearms are not permitted to be carried onto an airplane. Individuals who bring weapons to a checkpoint are subject to federal civil penalties of up to $13,000, depending on the weapon. A typical first offense for carrying a handgun into a checkpoint is $4,100. For more information, click over to the TSA’s website here.