Bringing guns to the airport?
Here’s what travelers should know after new court ruling
A judge’s decision striking down Broward County’s airport gun regulations might have left the impression that anything goes at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
That’s not quite true. Broward Circuit Judge Carlos Rodriguez ruled this month that the county was wrong to prohibit guns at any airport property, including parking lots, roadways and other parts of the airports. The bans also applied to taxi drivers having guns in their cars, even if they had the proper permits.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Florida Carry, a nonprofit group of gun owners that said the rules could discourage people from activity that was perfectly legal under state law.
The decision was particularly concerning in a county where five travelers were shot to death at the airport in 2017. The gunman had traveled here with nothing but a checked gun and opened fire in the baggage claim area once he claimed it.
Broward County had not been enforcing its tougher regulations anyway and has not decided whether to appeal Rodriguez’s ruling. For now, though, that doesn’t mean you can take a gun into the airport.
Here’s what’s state law provides.
In terminals: Individuals cannot carry a gun — in open view or concealed — into a passenger terminal at an airport. The ban includes the entire terminal, both those sections after the TSA security checkpoints and areas such as ticket counters, baggage claim and other public sections open to people who do not have airline tickets.
Outside terminals: People picking up and dropping off passengers outside the terminals aren’t prohibited from having a gun with
them.
Visitors with a concealed carry weapons permit are allowed to carry their guns outside the passenger terminals in public areas on airport property, just like anywhere else, according to state and federal law. And Florida law allows anyone with a legal weapon to store it secured in their vehicle, which would apply while they’re on airport roads or in airport parking garages or lots.
When traveling: Airline passengers who plan to travel with guns should bring them to the airport unloaded and securely locked in a hard-sided container. They can’t keep the guns with them during their flights, but must place them in checked baggage and declare them. The airline notified of each transported, and should hold onto locked container.
Ammunition and firearm parts, including magazines, clips, bolts and firing pins, also must be transported in checked baggage and declared. carrier must be weapon being the gun owner the keys for the
What the county says: Gun owners seeking to do their own homework might have a hard time. It took officials at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport more than a day to respond to a request for information about gun policies at the airport.
Sensitive to the recent court decision, the airport’s official response was: “Until there is a final outcome in the Florida Carry case, state and federal laws as they apply to airport property are still applicable.”