Over the following days, an X-ray machine detected a 9mm pistol and ammunition in the hand luggage of a passenger in Philadelphia, a .45 caliber handgun and seven bullets in the carry-on bag of a man boarding a plane at New York’s Westchester airport, and a loaded weapon carried through screening in Wisconsin.
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Security officers confiscated two firearms in two days at the Columbus, Ohio international airport. Other arrests for guns turned up by searches were made at terminals in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
And that was just a fraction of the 18
guns confiscated every day on average from passengers traversing flight security across the US – a number that has been rising for years and is likely to continue doing so as firearms sales rise and more states make it easier to carry concealed weapons – even in airports.
Two decades after 9/11, thousands of passengers who are otherwise conditioned to remove their shoes, bag their liquids and all too often surrender their dignity at security screenings somehow manage to forget they are carrying an object that is the very reason they are being searched in the first place.
Last year, the US Transport Security Administration (TSA) seized 6,542 guns from people about to board planes at 262 airports – a sixfold increase since 2010. Nearly nine in 10 of the weapons were loaded.
Jeffrey Price, former assistant director of security at Denver international airport and co-author of a book on aviation security, said he wasn’t surprised.
“One of our unique American traits is the number of people who purchase a weapon and forget they even have the thing with them. It seems like every time there’s another active shooter incident, a lot more people go out and buy guns because they feel scared,” he said.
“A lot of those people who buy a gun in the heat of the moment, they toss it in their laptop bag or in their purse, and then they forget they have it. Next thing you know, they’re at the airport and oh, my gosh, I forgot I put that in there. Which in itself is pretty scary because it could mean they’re leaving a bag lying around at home with a gun in for a kid to get to.”
The TSA says that passengers claiming to forget they even have a gun is the most common explanation and is frequently accepted by the police. Although officials were more skeptical about a man who blamed his mother for packing a rifle found in his bag at Baltimore airport.
Price said other factors are also at work.
"هناك أيضا نسبة معينة من الأشخاص الذين يعتقدون أنه بسبب حصولهم على تصريح (لحمل سلاح) يمكنهم حمله في أي مكان وفي أي وقت ، وهذا غير صحيح. ثم لديك أشخاص يعتقدون فقط أنهم يستطيعون التسلل من خلالها. إدارة أمن النقل لن تلاحظ». وكان من بينهم الركاب الذين تم القبض عليهم وهم يحاولون تهريب بنادق محشوة داخل دجاجة نيئة ، وجرار من زبدة الفول السوداني ، وبلاي ستيشن ، وحبال ذراع.