The U.S. Transportation Security Administration announced today that, in 2022, it detected a record 6,542 firearms in carry-on bags or on passengers at checkpoints. That’s a sizeable jump from the 5,972 detected in 2021 and a spike compared with the 4,432 detected in 2019. Of the guns caught in 2022, approximately 88 percent were loaded. Firearms were caught at 262 airport checkpoints nationwide.
The Wall Street Journal’s write-up includes these eye-opening anecdotes:
At security checkpoints this year, the agency has found firearms in some peculiar vessels. In September, TSA found a gun stuffed into a whole uncooked chicken at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida. At John F. Kennedy International Airport in December, officers found a disassembled semiautomatic handgun in two jars of peanut butter.
Don’t ever change, Florida Man. Forget the gun for a moment; who boards a plane with a bag full of uncooked chicken?
Separately, you can almost hear the excuse of that traveler at JFK: Officer, the gun is disassembled and securely packed in not one but two separate jars of peanut butter. Surely, you can see this firearm is no threat to anyone beyond bread and jelly.
The TSA reminds passengers that they are permitted to travel with firearms in their checked baggage if they are unloaded and packed in a locked hard-side case. Ammunition must be in its original box and can be packed inside the hard-side case, next to the firearm. Even if the box of ammunition is not full, the bullets must be in their original case. The case with the firearm should be brought to the airline check-in counter to be declared with the airline representative. Firearms are transported in the belly of the aircraft so that nobody has access to them during the flight.
Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport topped the list of airports with the most TSA firearm discoveries, with 448 firearm finds, the most ever recorded at any airport since the inception of TSA. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport came in second, with 385, followed by Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport with 298, Nashville International Airport with 213, and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport with 196. The rest of the top-ten list includes Orlando International Airport, Denver International Airport, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, and Tampa International Airport.