TSA goes for guns, money as travelers keep violating rules
WASHINGTON — The Transportation Security Administration levied civil penalties of approximately $1.45 million against travelers who violated firearms regulations at airports around the country last year, records show.
The TSA filed more than 4,000 actions against gun-carrying travelers in 2017, according to data obtained through a request made under the Freedom of Information Act. Many of the civil claims arose from guns being taken into a handful of U.S. airports that are among the busiest hubs and are in the South or West. These claims are often levied in addition to criminal charges filed by state and local law enforcement agencies against air travelers who fail to follow firearms laws at the nation’s airports.
About one-quarter (954) of the civil claims arose from guns detected at the following six airports: Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International; Dallas-Fort Worth International; George Bush Intercontinental in Houston; Phoenix Sky Harbor International; Denver International; and Dallas Love Field.
The TSA declined to identify those violators in the FOIA records, citing privacy restrictions.
For several years, the TSA has reported finding record numbers of firearms at airport checkpoints as both the number of people flying and the number of people legally carrying firearms have increased.
Just this week, TSA officers at Reagan National Airport stopped an Arlington, Va., woman whose carry-on bag contained a loaded 9mm pistol, including a round chambered and ready to fire. The TSA said this was the 13th time this year that someone being screened by security at National had been found with a firearm. That figure ties the number of firearms identified there in all of 2017, the TSA said.
Her arrest came just a few days after a Hagerstown, Md., man carrying a collapsible rifle tried to board an airplane at Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport. He told TSA officers he didn’t know he was carrying the .40-caliber rifle because his mother had packed his bag, a TSA spokeswoman said.
Still, the data provided by the TSA in response to a FOIA request offers at least a narrow look at the agency’s use of civil monetary sanctions to discourage unlawful carrying of firearms at the nation’s airports.
Most of the claims — 3,932, or about 96 percent — arose from guns that were detected as passengers went through security screening with carry-on bags. Ten claims arose from firearms that were found unlawfully packed in checked baggage. Although it is legal to fly with firearms in checked baggage, they must be packed in a specified manner and declared when the bag is checked.