“Whatever the cause, the numbers are pretty astounding, and the passengers are safer and TSA agents are safer.” – Steve Sigmund, executive director of the Manhattan-based Global Gateway Alliance quoted in Local airports are nearly gun-free compared to other regions [via nj.com]
I love how it is to be assumed that a person with a gun is always up to no good.
Grandma forgot her .38 was in a bag she’s using as a carry on. Whew! We just saved like 9,999 lives. And made a cool 10 G’s from fining the old biddy.
The interesting thing about the ‘logic’ of their arguments is that it is based on the dual, and inherently contradictory, assumptions that any non-police or non-military person with a gun has ill or criminal intent, and that people breaking one law will simultaneously obey another.
Interesting article, even has count of guns seized by Airport. States people can get the gun back if it was an honest mistake, so if Granny wants her, now 10K gun back, she can petition for it, after she gets over the trauma of being stripped searched, missing her flight
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2014/12/one_list_local_airports_are_not_on_guns_seized_at_checkpoints.html
Yay! Texas! 5 of the top 12 on the list of most guns seized. 327 total for the state.
“It has to do with the weapons laws in the jurisdictions,” said Farbstein, citing the relatively permissive guns laws in Texas and Florida compared to relatively strict laws in New Jersey and New York.
It has to do with the unconstitutional weapons laws in the jurisdictions,” said Farbstein, citing the slightly less infringing guns laws in Texas and Florida compared to tyranical laws in New Jersey and New York.
FIFY
From the article:
“Over 95 percent of the people who have a firearm at the checkpoint tell us they forgot,” Farbstein said adding that 70 percent of the guns seized are loaded. “A lot of them have bullets in the chamber. That was in the 10 percent range.”
Mr. Wu always carries with one in the pipe.
“I love how it is to be assumed that a person with a gun is always up to no good.”
…and there, my friend, you neatly summarize the false assumption that underpins 99% of anti-gun ownership/public carry rhetoric! Good job!
Or perhaps the gun grabbers understand, deep down, that it is THEY who are up to no good with their attempts to deny our natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right(s) and that eventually people will realize this and those of us who still have our guns will pose a significant danger – to them.
@Cliff H, I believe you have hit correctly upon a corollary to Shire-man’s thesis. When you think about it and apply to what the gun grabbers say, there is ALWAYS an inference that any “ordinary Citizen” who wants to own a gun(s) is “up to no good”, presents a “danger to others”, is somehow deranged and so forth. This is a projection of their own violent tendencies and follows the teachings of Saul Alinsky perfectly by attempting to make the “danger” seem personal and imminent to those they are trying to convince of their point of view. They consistently project that you and I, who own guns, are a “danger” to everyone who does not and insinuate that we are unstable and likely to “go berserk” and kill people at random. In reality, they are “up to no good” because they use false premises to attempt to deny our natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear Arms by projecting their own unstable, insane character upon everyone else.They know exactly what they are doing. I think they have already gotten to the conclusion that “those of us who still have our guns will pose a significant danger – to them.” except they claim it is currently the case, not a future event.
Great example of seeing what you want to see. Are airports really safer than other areas? If comparing to central city neighborhoods, probably. If comparing to rural farming country, probably even or less safe. Just because someone hasn’t walked into an airport with the intent of becoming famous (other than the LAX guy), doesn’t mean winning by blind dumb luck makes you safer. Tomorrow, someone could go all Aurora/Newtown on any airport in the nation. The only thing that will dictate the body count is how quickly does armed resistance respond.
“Safer” until an American airport gets hit with an attack like the Israelis had at Lod in the ’70’s.
Mumbai, Westlake Shopping Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, Beslan Middle School No , Peshawar Army Public School
I feel much safer now, NOT
After reading a number of reports of people showing up with guns at checkpoints, the story that seems to get lost is the incredible number of people who (if we believe them all) forget where they have guns stashed. or that they even have guns stashed. what good are forgotten guns? If the truth is that, “Oh well, I just remembered that I keep a gun in my gym bag, a gun I would not be able to bring to bear in self-defense because I forgot that I even have it.”, then what does that say about people who are lumped into the “safety-conscious, RTKABA, responsible gun owners” category? Does such irresponsible gun handling not “prove” the gun-grabber case that gun owners are not to be trusted?
I don’t believe for a minute that people who show-up at the airport with a gun actually “forgot” they had a gat stuffed in that luggage. And penalties are designed to punish, not deter. So, while these nudniks should endure the result, maybe we of the gun should make a big deal out of these failures. maybe go on a rant about how our own are our worst enemies.
Leaving stuff in your bag is surprisingly easy to do. Its called a “mistake”, like leaving your wallet somewhere or locking your keys in your car. You would never do it on purpose and yet it happens.
I always keep a multitool of some kind in my camera bag and I’ve had two of them taken away when I would have sworn I’d removed them. One was in in Europe, which means it had made it through US security outbound.
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What were the numbers BEFORE the TSA?
I am sure people were getting caught with loaded guns in their luggage long before 911.
I worked gate security (Wackenhut) at John Wayne airport (Orange County, CA) in the winter of 1978-79. All we had were x-ray machines and reserve Orange Country Sheriffs. I personally stopped a .357 Colt from going aboard in carry-on and other pistols were routinely uncovered. Most were handled quietly by removing the person from the gate before making the arrest, so the public was unaware of any issues. There are no statistics for this period that I am aware of, and my comments must be anecdotal, but this was a small commuter airport at the time so I have to believe if we were finding guns the bigger airports were as well.
By the way, the most interesting find was a tiny North American Arms stuffed in a cigarette package. The guy thought the foil around the cigarettes would defeat the x-rays.
Perhaps the author does not know that you were allowed to carry a firearm aboard until the hijacking craze of the 70″s. Pilots used to be required to be armed on planes that carried US mail.
Or that pilots were forbidden to carry starting 01 JULY 2001…
“Generally speaking, if it is an honest mistake the gun would be returned,”
Generally speaking, virtually all of the seized firearms should be returned then, since the odds of someone with ill intent of trying to walk right through the metal detectors with their weapons at an airport are pretty low.
Hanlon’s razor.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
I’ll bet a SIGNIFICANT number of those found with guns at the screening point are federal, state, and local law enforcement.
If that’s true, you can bet that they got off without even a slap on the wrist. The law does not apply to law enforcement personnel when it’s inconvenient.
So, what happens to all those confiscated firearms? (sorry, just would like to know the answer…can I buy them? can the owner get them back??)
I’m sure a lot of them become the possession of unaccountable law enforcement institutions (local police, sheriff dept) where they wind up becoming the personal possessions of those in privileged positions. Perks of the ruling class.
au contraire. I am never safer when I am forced to leave the responsibility for my safety in the hands of another – especially so when that “other” is the security Kabuki Theater known as TSA.
I would be much happier if law-abiding citizens carried their firearms with them – in the airport, and on the airplane.
Three cheers for the TSA! Now, if the TSA can just find all that lost legroom on all those uncomfortable airplanes, I might fly again.
What the NJ article neglects to mention is the activity at private airports on private planes, with no violent outcomes.
Private flights like that are perfect: you drive right up to the tarmac, park about 100 feet from the plane, walk straight to it and climb in. No xrays, no metal detectors, no pat downs, no wanding, no latex gloves.
About 3 out of 4 passengers are either on or off body carrying, but nothing has ever happened. No NDs, no terrorism, no shootouts in the midst of heated arguments. Nothing. Curious, that.
They link to the ranking of how strict each state’s gun laws are:
http://www.politicit.com/ranking-states-with-the-strictest-gun-laws/
… but fail to mention the single linear regression chart at the bottom:
“After completing the rankings, we compared this ranking of states by gun regulations with the murder rates per 100,000 person population and created the following graph to see if we could find any correlation present. It appears that gun laws have little to no effect on the reduction of murders by firearms, holding other variables constant.”
It is my understanding private jets and private flights are more popular then ever…i
wonder why ? I don’t fly commercial now myself either. Neither TSA or the useless
security “theater” has any credibility.
the passengers are safer and TSA agents are safer.” As everyone thought on 9/11……..
The TSA guy Farbstein in NJ is a damn idiot.
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