TSA finds record number of guns at airports in ’19

The Transportation Security Administration caught more firearms at airport checkpoints in 2019 than in any other year since it was created in 2001, the agency said Wednesday, as part of a steady uptick that its leader called “deeply troubling.”

The agency said that it found 4,432 firearms last year in carryon bags or carried by passengers, neither of which is allowed. That number was 5% higher than the 4,239 firearms discovered in 2018 and nearly five times the 926 found in 2008, the TSA said.

A vast majority of the guns found in 2019 — almost 90% — were loaded, the TSA said. About onethird of the guns caught had a round in the chamber.

“The continued increase in the number of firearms that travelers bring to airport checkpoints is deeply troubling,” David Pekoske, administrator of the TSA, said in a statement this week. He advised flyers to follow the rules of the “proper way to travel safely with a firearm.”

The airports where the most firearms were found in 2019 were at three major hubs: 323 at HartsfieldJackson Atlanta International, 217 at Dallas/Fort Worth International and 140 at Denver International.

Jenny Burke, a TSA spokeswoman, said Thursday that the agency did not speculate on why the numbers were increasing because “a lot of factors” could play a role.

Federal rules allowing guns to be checked at airports have sometimes caused confusion among passengers traveling to cities with strict firearm regulations. Some visitors to New York City, for example, have been arrested upon checking guns for return flights home, unaware that they cannot legally possess guns in the city without a city gun permit.