TSA: Man brought guns to airport
COLONIE — A Johnstown man carrying two loaded guns and extra ammunition was stopped before he could board his flight at Albany International Airport on Tuesday, the Transportation Security Administration said.
TSA said its officers spotted the handguns in the man’s backpack at the checkpoint X-ray unit. The police were alerted and interviewed the man. One gun was a .45 caliber with nine bullets, with one in the chamber. The other was a .380 caliber handgun loaded with seven bullets. In addition, officers detected a gun magazine loaded with six more bullets, the TSA said.
The man claimed he forgot he had the loaded weapons with him, officials said. “To say that you forgot that you had two loaded handguns with an extra magazine with additional ammunition is inexcusable,” said Bart R. Johnson, TSA’S federal security director for upstate New York, in a statement. “If you own firearms, you need to know where they are at all times and you need to know the proper way to transport your guns for a flight.”
The man had a New York state gun permit for his weapons, “but that is not a free pass to bring your guns into the cabin of an airplane,” Johnson said. Though not charged because he had a permit, the man does face a federal financial civil penalty for bringing loaded guns to a security checkpoint, TSA officials said.
“The fact that one of the guns had a bullet in the chamber was just an accident waiting to happen,” Johnson said. “This was a good catch on the part of our TSA officers.”