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“Each year, thousands of air travelers, airport workers and TSA officers face unnecessary danger because of gun owners who attempt to bring firearms through carry-on luggage checkpoints,” [Pennsylvania State Rep. Dan] Frankel said in a statement. “The statistics are alarming – last year, TSA seized about 6,500 guns, and nearly 90% of them were loaded. The owners’ response in 100% of the cases was ‘I forgot.’” 

This year, the TSA says it is on track to set a record for the most guns stopped at checkpoints in a single year. The current record set last year was 6,542. At Harrisburg International Airport, TSA has found eight guns as of Christmas Day, just two shy of the highest number stopped since at least 2017.

TSA agents at PIttsburgh International Airport caught 44 guns at the airport’s checkpoint as of Christmas Day, nine more than the previous record of 35 firearms caught in 2019. Philadelphia International Airport also is seeing a record high number of firearms in carry-on baggage with 45 incidents as of mid-December, according to a report on 6ABC.

“It’s kind of like an epidemic of stupidity at best and who knows, at worst,” Frankel told PennLive. “If we revoke license to carry permits for people because they are shoplifting or because of a marijuana possession or something like that, this certainly raises to a more dangerous violation than those kinds of incidents. Taking away someone’s permit relates directly to the infraction. It makes a lot of sense.”

— Jan Murphy in Packing Heat in a Pa. Airport Could Cost Gun Owners Their Concealed Carry Permits Under Proposed Law

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85 COMMENTS

    • ….”I forgot”…is usually the correct response…the perp is usually fined and the gun confiscated unless they don’t have a carry permit…in which case charges are usually filed…there is no sinister intent present here…just stupidity….

  2. FYI :TSA was established under Bush after 9/11
    Same guy that merged Customs and Immigration and Border Patrol into CBP

    • I’m well aware of the origins of the TSA and the tyranny of the Bush regime. George Bush is deserving of the gallows, hopefully live from the lawn of the White House, along with Clinton, Obama and Biden and a handful of congresscritters.

      • Not so fast hangman…GW Bush 2 at the sight of thousands murdered on 911 thought he was doing the right thing like you running your mouth seems right to you. Fact is Bush 2 allowed the clintoon era AWB to Sunset which is why the AR-15 looks like it should in most states with the exception of CA where it has been bastardized beyond recognition by democRats. Had Bush 2 surrendered to democRats and extended the so called AWB things for the 2A would have went from bad to worse. Instead when you walk in a Gun Store or shop online you and your like minded ilk can show some gratitude by thanking Bush 2 for getting the rapist bill clintoon and his democRat pal’s hands off your rights.

        • I see we have one of the deluded RINO sheeple spouting BS in defense of a Nazi tyrant. No wonder this country has gone to hell. Bubba Bush called our Constitution a “goddamn piece of paper”. I guess that was alright with you too?

    • It matters little what name is attached to a law that violates your civil rights. TSA and it’s parent, Homeland Security, both need to be disbanded, along with the ATF, DEA, and probably the FBI. Doesn’t matter which fools created those institutions, or which have backed them since their creation. Your civil rights are violated, regardless.

      • I won’t take the word of TSA contending thousands of passengers saying they forgot the gun was there, loaded, etc. However if an individual does not know where their firearms are 24/7 then that individual needs nothing more than a whistle.

      • I feel a lot of hostility here, and rightly so, I am a well armed individual wherever I go, and have to admit that I have a gun waiting in every destination I frequent, that being said, how about the ones I don’t frequent? well here is my answer to that, I rather be safe in an airplane completely free of guns, than have to carry mine to defend myself in a situation that can kill everyone if a shot breaks a pressurized cabin. and if this is ever remmedied, I would like to see more armed guards on board than the moron supposedly provided by the government having my back.

      • perhaps the airlines should be responsible for their own security?…instead of getting a free ride…not that hard to put your gun in checked baggage…..

    • Those of us who flew commercial before 911 know about the security checks. Which did include a physical inspection of carry on bags.

      Yes, the TSA is unconstitutional. And you have always been a stupid dumb azz, for having a gun in your carry on bag.

      • My first commercial airline flight was from Orange COunty up to San Farncisco. I had ridden my bicycle from college in the Bay Area down to my famiy home in Orange COunty. To get back up north (I did not have the time to make the round trip by bicycle) I rode it to the airport in Orfange County, walked it into the terminal and up to a ticket counter, asked when the net plane was leaving fir SFO.”Leaving in half an hour”. How much? “$19.95. Iplopped a twenty dollar bill on the counter, was issued a cash register receipt which gave the flight number, and was directed down a hallway to the gate. I wheeled the bike as I walked, carried it down the steps down to the tarmac, handed it off to a baggage guy who said he’d find a safe place for it in the hold. I then walked up the boarding stairs and took a seat, any seat, in the main cabin. Not one person ever even asked my name, let alone demanded any ID. The only ID I ever needed was the Jackson I handed the clerk at the cash register.

        HOW did we get from there to here in half a century? Can’t even gett on a stinking train without full ID and often a frisk job. Used to be anyone could carry a handgun on their hip inside the cabin, no one ever got their knickers all beknotted.
        Just think..if even ONE armed/skilled citizen had been aboard each of the four hijacked airliners on 11 September the taking out of the hijackers might have made a small short one column bit piece on an inside page of the daily fishwrap.

        • 1st flight had was courtesy of Uncle Sugar summer 1983. The passengers on airline flights today would have been rejected by Greyhound in 1983.

  3. I’d rather have a colonoscopy than fly these days. F the airline industry. I hope they all go bust.

      • I avoid it but sometimes it’s more trouble than it is worth. It’s hard to drive all the way to India or Peru, or even the Virgin Islands.

        Come to think of it I have a colonoscopy scheduled for next month too.

        • While I can’t stand dealing with dolts in the airports (mostly the idiots that keep not locking my bags back causing me to lose locks) I was thinking the same thing. I went to Peru twice in 23 and am going back again in January. Can’t walk there, can’t drive there so….

    • Colonoscopy is nothing ,they knock you out and then you wake up and go home , a teeth cleaning is more uncomfortable. The prep is interesting,but the new style is better then the past ones .

  4. I honestly don’t see much wrong with this law as long as their is a path to get it back.

    Gun ownership is a responsibility. Showing up at the airport with a gun in your carry on is irresponsible and detracts from the ability of airport security to find real threats.
    I think a lot of these folks realize their mistake and instead of locking it in the glove box or going back home and catching a later flight they decide to risk it and see if they get through, selfish.

    • Lol yeah good luck with that path back. Any rights surrendered will never be returned short of some relatively extreme measures (like not having a chance in hell of reelection if an AWB was extended).

      • temporary suspension sounds like a better option….Ohio has constitutional carry as does West Virginia…but lawmakers in PA tend to look east, north or south for their inspiration…

    • And your boarding pass will now always have the code SSSS printed on it. I hope you enjoy invasive searches before every flight.

    • They don’t need one. The Second Amendment is the only “permit” necessary for any American to keep or bear arms.

        • What is right and honorable and what the thugs in charge force upon the people are often not the same thing.

          Regardless, a permit is not required in theory -so only a Fudd would look down at somone who didn’t have one. While it is probably a good idea to have one to make your life easier (and longer outside of a cage) it isn’t technically necessary nor is anyone an actual criminal who refuses or is unable to obtain one.

    • Greg, that would be an interesting question to have answered before the politicians “do something” because, you know, “there ought to be a law”.

    • and you would be VERY MUCH mistaken.

      WHen someone does something on a continual basis, as in all day every day, one no linger stops to think about it. Do you stop and force yourself to remember to put on your shoes when you leave the house? Same thing. FOr something that SHOULD, per the Cnstitution, be as natural and ormal as taking your next breath, the game is suddenly changed by the stupid reality that it is now “illegal” and for o real valid reason.

      What REALLT should happen is a ssytem much like my state mandates for courthouses, where no one but desingated LE can possess a firearm. I approach the main entry door, inform the officer on duty I have a handgun to check, he brings me back out the front door, suggests an availble locker, I take the key, put MY gun inside, take the key with me. When I lea e, I take the key I’ve had all this time, step outside, tak my key, open the locker, retrieve and reholster my piece, return the key, and am on my way. No ID, no fuss, MY gun is secure, and I cannot access it.
      I KNOW all airlines have a system for super valuable or secure stuff to go into a lockbox and staff bring it into a desngiated place inside the cabin, sometomes inside the flight conrol area. It remains in there until it gets to the other end. WHY not issue a numbered key, put MY gun into a small metal locker, matching nubmer, it goes escorted into a secure area of the airplane. at the other end, I bring my key to the designated retrievel area, the cart with checked secure items comes to the baggage claim area, I take my numbered key, retrieve my handgun, put it where it belongs,, and am on y way. Everything and everyne is secure, no guns in cabin….. in theory. And no one charged with crimes, loskng their valuable personal property, etc. The game is MNOT to make the craft secure, it is to CONTROL we citizens as the serfs they think we are.

      • I carry a gun every day. When I went to work in my Federal Prison prior to retirement I never had a problem with forgetting if I were armed and never walked up to the front entrance strapped.. I flew for seven years on Con Air and we locked our guns in the cargo hold of our 727 jet. No one seemed to have an issue with it.

        When I fly now, very rarely, I don’t have a problem remembering not to carry it but then I’m a pretty sharp 73 year old. I have yet to run into a locker check in for weapons here in Arizona but then I don’t deal with government entitles much in person any more. The law states they are to be provided but the cites routinely ignore that little safety valve for the CCW guys.

  6. I regularly travel 1200 miles one way for business. Part of the package. Last 2 times I flew, another area member bailed, rented a vehicle and drove home from DC area rather than wait, leaving roughly at the same time. Both times he beat me home due to weather and cancellations. We’ve been sharing a drive ever since. Doing again this week. No concern about carrying a gun, luggage of trans to/from airport, parking, etc. either. If we must go east, we never stop in IL, just keep driving. Take a leak on W side of Mississippi, once again in IN. Not like we don’t want to leave sewage in IL. (Sorry, Boch)

    • Kind of pricey these days to rent a car one -way. Last time I checked a few weeks ago Enterprise was charging over $1000 fee on the top of the rental to return a car to a different branch than where it was picked up. Rentals have become so ridiculous that you can buy a beater and drive it to your destination and sell it there much cheaper than renting. But the last couple of years since the kung flu there have been times buying a used car cost as much as buying a new one (if you could even find one for sale.) But that is pretty much over now. Prices of used cars is plummeting as so many auto loans are not getting paid and repossessions are shooting through the roof. The big crash is right around the corner.

    • Driving I74 the only stop in Ill is rest area to take a dump. All that the state is good for. Spend $0. Gas/food in Quad Cities and in Indiana.

      Too many prog urban cesspools downstate to blame it all on Chiraq.

      • Stay away from the Indiana 80/90/94 corridor because Gary and environs is a worse pit than most of Chicago. Indianapolis is bigger but still a blue hole.

      • If they are still doing it, Illinois mandates their FOID card for anyone in possession of a firearm in that state. I’ve read simehorror stories about simple road stops turning into felony busts, loss of 2A rights, huge lawyer fees, etc. I refuse to even cross that line. I will not even fly through their airport, nor book a flight with a stop anywhere near, because a weather or traffic diversion could result in a landing in Illinois.
        I have ot heard they have relaxed a bit on that FOID nonsense…. maye someone else is current on that. Same with NJ

  7. Years back I dropped my girlfriend at the airport and told her to put her guns in the glove compartment since we were driving her car and I was going to take it to her house and park it in the garage. Several days later I picked her up at the airport and she reached into the glove compartment and grabbed a revolver that she put in there. I looked at her puzzled and said where is your Ruger? She had forgotten to take a Ruger LCP and some loaded magazines out of her gargantuan purse. She made it through screening four times with that gun.

    • My wife and I were traveling internationally 8 or so years back and the airport screener at the security desk only allowed one person to approach the desk at a time. My wife went before me and presented her documents and they checked her ID, Passport, airline tickets, and travel vax documents and set her on her way. When he called me next and looked through mine he completely began freaking out and was reaching for his panic button to have more TSA people come take me away because I was presenting him with an obviously wrong passport with a different name and gender. It seems my wife & I had somehow got our passports mixed up.

      I advised him not to do that because he would be in as much trouble (or.worse) as I would be and pointed at my wife waiting 50′ away on the other side of the security ropes who he had just let through 30 seconds before with MY passport. He totally missed that fact when he “checked” her documents and had already let her through with my passport.

      His eyes got really big and his face went white as he realized he had messed-up and just waved me through while telling me not to ever say anything about it. LOL

    • yeah,..some do probably get thru…when we trained on the X-ray machine the boss would often hide a gun in a bag just to see if we would catch it….

  8. If we are going to forced to deal with the thing referred to as The TSA then it only makes sense that carrying a firearm through a TSA checkpoint would result in a huge problem that could easily mean revocation of a concealment license. I’m not sure why this would even be a question in anyone’s mind. To expect anything different is just plain stupid.

    The problem here is NOT the forfeiture of the license. This is a combination of idiots that might try to carry a gun through a checkpoint AND the fact that The TSA exists in the first place. We ALL should be completely aware of what it means to use airplanes for traveling now. Wether these policies are justified or not is another question. It’s all part of why I simply don’t travel by air. But if you choose to then you should do so being totally conscious of what doing that truly means. That includes being felt up.

    If you want to fix this then get rid of the TSA.

    • Deeper than that. Get rid of this out of control federal government constantly chipping away at the foundations of our Constitution and dismantling the Bill of Rights. Time to return to the intent and purpose our founders had for the Constitution. Both parties are the modern day domestic terrorists in our Republic.

        • They don’t care. I write mine often and all I get in condescending replies as if I’m a 12-year-old that doesn’t understand a thing.
          (STFU Ranger Rick.)

        • I have zero faith that writing and calling Congressmen accomplish anything at all. What people do need to do is be mindful of who they vote for.

          I certainly am not suggesting that a single member of society can remove the TSA. But like I said, I don’t fly.

  9. You are 100% safer sitting next to someone who forgot they left a gun in their bag than you are sitting next to some idiot who is coughing and sneezing and spreading flu germs throughout the plane.

    As ALWAYS, the fatal flaw in the argument of the gun-hater is that they are ignoring malicious intent, or in this case, the absence of it.

    The entire statement of the “law” maker here is built on the premise that all guns are bad and dangerous, no matter who holds them, or how they handle them.

    No gun has ever jumped out of a bag and started shooting people on its own, even if that bag happens to be on an airplane.

  10. I’m sorry, but if you are stupid enough to carry a gun into a TSA checkpoint…then you are not a responsible gun owner, and whatever happens is of your own making.

  11. Travelers are now well aware of the laws associated with air travel, flying while armed is generally not permitted on commercial aviation. Penalties resulting from the violation are the consequence. Don’t like it, don’t fly. Or talk to your political representative and make change happen.

    • Sure punish gun owners who make a mistake. I hear all the time how easy it is to make that mistake. The atmosphere in such progressive states is find anyway to punish gun owners while letting criminals off! Your comment does NOT help the situation!

      • The “punishment” is the fine and most often a misdemeanor conviction. The withdrawal of the carry permit is considered an “Administrative Action”.

        • You’re an Administrative arrapnachek, aren’t you?
          What have you ever done to protect the 2A?

    • Sure, I live in VA, 3rd District. All 3 of my congresscritters are DemoCommies hell bent on finally destroying our Republic. No amount of “talking” is going to “make change happen”

      • Move then to a more politically comfortable local and quit whining. There’s plenty of places other than VA, 3rd District.

        • Screw you idiot. This is my hometown, why the hell should I move to have representation of my God given rights. Did your mother have any children with intelligence? Stupidity in the nation has become epidemic.

  12. It is easy to make that mistake, especially if you carry everywhere and are late and rushing to catch a flight. Mistakes happen!! HOW ARE EMPLOYEES AT RISK?!?!?!?! Sure be easy on armed criminals and find another way to punish gun owners in progressive/socialist Pennsylvania!! Part of the continuing war on gun owners

    • a gun is part of your daily kit for many gun-owners…right along with your keys, wallet and cell-phone…but there are big signs warning you just before you approach that checkpoint…

    • This is a weapon, this isn’t a mistake that is acceptable, quite frankly it poorly reflects upon the gun owner. By saying this is an easy mistake to make if you carry everywhere really just provides ammunition to the people who want to further restrict carrying a gun in public by showing how careless gun owners are with carrying guns all the time on them in public.

      Having a gun when you reach a checkpoint and stating you didn’t know you had it with you really shows that the gun owners doesn’t keep track of where their guns are.

  13. If those TSA agents are in such danger, why haven’t any of them been shot by someone who brings a gun into the TSA area of the airport? Seems to me these hoplophobes are going off the deep end.

    • They need to go somewhere as logic and legal justifications are abandoning their arguments so why not the deep end. Especially when we will be the ones that have to clean up after the mess they make.

  14. TSA shouldn’t exist, security checkpoints shouldn’t exist, and there should be zero restrictions on carry on domestic flights.

    None of these people are criminals or terrorists and no crime is being “prevented”.

  15. They say they forgot … because they forgot.

    Those guns sitting in bags aren’t a danger to anyone. There’s no reason to punish the owners any more than people are punished for including a too-large screwdriver as part of their toolkit in a carry-on.

  16. The Feds should pass an identical law that would of course cover all of the states and all of the airports. Remember the life the Feds save will be your own because irresponsible people often are people who are also wacko’s and if they would succeed in getting a gun on a plane anything could happen as they would be the first to shoot someone who accidentally sat in their seat.

  17. if the airlines were serious about this they could ban you from their flights…yet they don’t…why?…better to increase the fines for anyone who does this more than once…

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