![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/G19.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nWhy does this continue to be a problem and what can we do to\nreverse the trend? Full disclosure: I am a gun owner with a concealed carry\npermit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s first narrow this down to the real problem. Besides\nseizures, people seem to focus on the number of guns that were loaded, and the\nnumber with a round in the chamber. It should come as no surprise that\nindividuals who carry, often do so with their gun loaded and ready-to-fire. It\ngets inconvenient to have to ask the bad guys to wait while you put in a\nmagazine and chamber a round. Many people who carry, do so with their firearm\nin a ready-state. These statistics are about as relevant as saying most stolen\ncars had gasoline in them! They are primarily for shock value and do not\ncontribute to solving the problem. Like\nmost dilemmas the solution is not simple. If it was, we would have solved it by\nnow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We could attribute an increase in seizures to simple math.\nMore people are buying guns, and more are getting concealed carry permits,\ntherefore more are likely to have them at a checkpoint. However, although\npassenger enplanements were 14% higher in 2018 than in 2008, the number of\nseizures is up by orders of magnitude higher. TSA has made improvements in both\ntechnology and training to improve the detection rate, but since they don\u2019t\nrelease statistics on screener performance, it\u2019s difficult to tell if these\nmeasures support increased seizure rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/American-PHX.jpg\")
People give a variety of reasons for why they have a gun in\ntheir bag at a screening area, but the two most common are they either forgot\nthat they had the gun in there, or because they have a state-issued concealed\ncarry permit, they thought they could carry it anywhere, including on an\nairplane. Both of these are scary problems. If you\u2019re walking around with a\nfirearm in your bag and you don\u2019t know it, that is a tragedy waiting to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mass shootings typically trigger a rise in gun sales. It is\nlikely that some individuals purchase a weapon after the shooting in order to\nfeel safe, and then over time simply forgot they had it, and it\u2019s now buried in\nthe bottom of a purse, backpack or laptop bag. This could account for some of\nthe rise in seizures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you somehow reasoned that a concealed carry permit is\ngood anywhere you want to go, then you should at least get in the habit of\nchecking TSA\u2019s well published prohibited items list before you get on an\nairplane, and checking the doors of businesses and government buildings for gun\nrestrictions as well. The National Rifle Association can also help us out by\nincluding the airplane prohibition in its basic pistol course curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just to clarify, you can\u2019t. Section 1540.111 of the US Code,\nTitle 14, specifically prohibits the carriage of a weapon into the cabin of an\naircraft, that is conducting a domestic or international flight (out of or into\nthe US) \u2013 in other words, the airlines. If you want to carry it in checked\nbaggage, fine, there are rules to follow but you are allowed to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another reason the seizures may be up is that 1\/3 of the\nseizures are attributable to just 10 commercial service airports, and four of\nthose airports are in Texas, a state known for its permissive gun laws. This\nlist included Dallas\/Ft. Worth, Bush Intercontinental, Austin\/Bergstrom and\nDallas\/Love Field. Also, Atlanta\/Hartsfield International Airport, one of the\nbusiest airports in the world and allows the public to carry a firearm inside\nthe terminal building but not through the checkpoint, tops the list with 298\nseizures in 2018. Most airports have banned firearms in public areas of\nairports. The other airports in the top 10 list, Phoenix, Denver, Orlando, Nashville,\nand Ft. Lauderdale are in states with relatively similar and permissive gun\nlaws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frequently, I am asked in interviews about why people don\u2019t\nread the signs or listen to the announcements in the airports, and the answer\nis simple. When you get to the airport, the only signs you\u2019re interested in are\nthe ones that will either get you to the ticket counter or to the screening\ncheckpoint. Unless you\u2019re standing around bored, most people are not reading\nthe warning signs. Additionally, people have heard the announcement so many\ntimes they simply just don\u2019t hear them anymore. Plus, like with the signs,\ntheir focus is not on what the announcement is saying, unless it is telling\nthem which gate their plane is departing from, how long their flight will be delayed\nor whether they got the first-class upgrade. Additional measures are needed if\nwe want to reduce this problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
TSA can and does regularly issues fines to passengers for\nattempting to bring a concealed firearm through a checkpoint. These fines can\ngo as high as $13,333 per offense, yet the results of these incidents are often\nnot made public. Maybe if more of these fines were made public and some media\ncoverage not just on the number of guns seized, but the number of individuals\nfined and the amounts, people would start paying attention, and finally go dig\nthat gun out of their bag that they purchased after the last mass shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jeffrey C. Price is a Professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, Department of Aviation and Aerospace Science, and the owner of Leading Edge Strategies, a top airport management training company.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Jeff Price Why have gun seizures at US airports gone up by 357% over the past ten years? In 2008, TSA 926 seized guns at screening checkpoints. Last year they seized 4,239 and the rate continues to increase. If you haven\u2019t heard, you can\u2019t carry a gun in the cabin of a US airline. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12923,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0891edit2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12922"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12927,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12922\/revisions\/12927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}