Travelers with guns levied $1.4 million in fines in ’17

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 agency 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.

The agency declined to identify those violators in the Freedom of Information Act records, citing privacy restrictions. The highly redacted data do not even include individual case numbers because the agency considers those private, too.

For several years, the agency 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. The agency has expressed concern not only because of the potential safety threat that firearms pose inside an airport or on a plane, but also because of the disruptions created at security checkpoints when a gun is found.

Just this week, Transportation Security Administration officers at Reagan National Airport stopped an Arlington, Va., woman going through a checkpoint whose carry-on bag contained a loaded 9mm pistol, including a round chambered and ready to fire. The agency said this was the 13th time this year that someone being screened at Reagan National had been found with a firearm. That figure ties the number of firearms identified there in all of 2017, the agency said.

That 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 Transportation Security Administration officers he didn’t know he was carrying the .40-caliber rifle because his mother had packed his bag, an agency spokesman said. Travelers who take firearms to checkpoints can face state or local criminal charges. The agency also can file federal civil claims of up to $13,000.

Still, the data provided in response to a Freedom of Information Act request offer 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.

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.

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.