Guns surrendered at airports on record pace

Brock N. Meeks Chief Washington correspondent • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - The government is grabbing firearms from U.S. airline travelers at a record pace, according to information obtained by MSNBC.com. 

The record haul of guns comes at time when the Transportation Security Administration is considering a proposal to allow some previously banned items, including small knives and razor blades, back onto commercial flights.

In the previous 12 months airline travelers have surrendered 735 firearms, slightly more than 61 per month, at airport security checkpoints, according to information supplied by the TSA.  The previous high was 637 firearms surrendered at airport checkpoints in 2003. 

Confiscation of firearms, however, pale in comparison to other potential weapons.  Every day for the past three years some 14,000 potential weapons were caught trying to pass through airport checkpoints, according to a study of TSA data done by the Deseret Morning News.  That study also showed that small hub airports (those that serve between 355,000 and 1.7 million passengers a year) catch far more weapons (12.3) on average, per 1,000 passengers, than the nation’s major airports (6.4 per 1,000 passengers).  More curious: the nation’s smallest non-hub airports, those serving fewer than 355,000 passengers per year, snagged the most potential weapons (15.1 per thousand passengers), according to the Deseret Morning News study.

Potential weapons are surrendered by passengers at airports because the TSA has no authority to actually take items from passengers, said Carrie Harmon, a TSA spokesperson.  Agency screeners can however, stop someone from boarding a plane if they don’t hand it over on request.  In addition, federal, state or local law enforcement officers are available to the TSA should more dangerous weapons, like firearms or explosives be found, Harmon said.

The TSA can’t explain why more weapons are being found per 1,000 passengers at smaller airports.  Harmon denied that training might play a factor.  “All screeners are trained to the same standards, to look for items within a specified amount of time,” she said. 

Nor will the TSA speculate as to why passengers continue to try and bring prohibited items through security checkpoints. 

“TSA has not done any analysis of passenger traveler habits or why passengers in one region or at one airport might bring different kinds of items or might bring more of one item than another,” Harmon said.  “But I can tell you that security is uniform across airports.”

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