'Packing' for the Airport

The chart is the latest from the TSA -- guns found in passengers' carry-on bags at checkpoints, for the week ended May 3.

That's 23 guns, 22 of them loaded.

The TSA is a little too wary, it seems to me, of making much of an issue about the fact that people routinely try to board airplanes carrying loaded guns.

Undoubtedly, few if any of these people have terrorist intent, but it seems to me that a good number of them have to be aware that they're packing. I simply don't buy the reasoning that somebody just plumb forgot he had a loaded Glock with a round in the chamber tucked next to his skivvies in his carry-on.

The TSA is wary about making much of an issue of this, I believe, because of the strong political influence being exerted on the federal government by the vocal "right to carry" segment of the gun lobby.

Instead, the TSA blog that publishes the weekly roundup of the sorts of prohibited items that are being routinely found in carry-on bags this week makes a somewhat big deal of the fact that a speargun was found in one passenger's bag.

From the TSA's Blogger Bob:

"Spearguns are Prohibited – I remember when I used to train TSOs. Theywould laugh when I mentioned Spearguns while going over prohibited items. Theycouldn’t believe that anybody would actually try to bring one on a plane.Well…in addition to all of the other ones we’ve found, the latest wasdiscovered at Raleigh-Durham (RDU)."

Well, Blogger Bob, I would guess that someone actually might well bring a speargun, inadvertently and perhaps stupidly, because they had a legitimate sports use for it on a vacation. Like for a diving vacation.

I'm a whole lot less amazed about a speargun (maybe you can hijack a pane with a speargun, but I doubt the rest of the passengers would let you) than I am about those loaded pistols you find every single day, and do not make much of an issue of.

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