Edhat Staff
By the edhat staff
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer discovered another firearm inside a traveler’s carry-on luggage at the Santa Barbara Airport last week.
Around noon on Thursday, June 29, a routine X-ray screening at the airport’s security checkpoint discovered a loaded 9mm Smith & Wesson handgun. An additional magazine loaded with 10 rounds of ammunition was also located inside the carry-on.
Once the TSA officer discovered the gun, the passenger and the bag were escorted out of the checkpoint area by law enforcement.
The male traveler was reportedly ticketed to fly direct to the Denver International Airport.
Fines for traveling with a loaded firearm in a carry-on bag can range from $2,000 to nearly $15,000.
This was the third time this year that officers discovered a firearm in carry-on luggage at the Santa Barbara Airport, according to the TSA. The previous incidents occurred on March 7 and May 23. All three incidents involved loaded guns.
Two firearms were discovered at the airport’s security checkpoint in 2022.
Even if a traveler has a concealed weapons permit, firearms are not permitted in carry-on luggage.
Firearms can be transported on a commercial aircraft only if they are unloaded, packed in a locked, hard-sided case and placed in checked baggage.
Perhaps people who do this should be barred from airline travel in the US. I know that I do not want to be in a sealed cabin at 30K feet with this person.
You gotta wonder about their frame of mind. Who doesn’t know that their bag is gonna go through and x ray machine and the firearm is gonna get noticed?
Please publicize the penalties assessed for these dangerous violations!
The only way such behavior will stop is if it is known that violators of the clear and well-known rule have had to pay $X penalty. …Also, it would be good, as A-…1802 says, if violators will be barred (for a reasonable amount of time) from flying but getting a new law is harder (or should be) than enforcing an existing one!
If not banned, then at least “Red Flag” this passenger, and any passenger who does this, for any future flights,. Future traveling would require hand-searches of every piece of luggage, everything, including clothing. New printed plastic guns don’t show up in X-rays I’m told.
There is never a reason to carry a weapon, let alone that is loaded on board an aircraft. That said we don’t know the circumstances. I find it difficult to understand that this person would not know their carry one was going to be scanned.
I had an associate who was a target shooter. Getting to an early morning flight on the way to a business meeting he grabbed the bag with his target pistol in rather than his business bag. He was arrested almost banned from flying for this. So s..t does happen.
It’s the owners responsibility period.
What circumstances, pray tell, (outside of an action movie) would there be a good reason for bringing a loaded gun onto an airplane?
Passenger cabins have to be pressurized in flight. Even if no one was shot, holes in the airplane would be dangerous. The gun prohibition is common knowledge. Carrying one aboard is an act of narcissitic arrogance not ignorance. The penalty should be very high, not only a very expensive fine, but a week or month in jail and no-fly listed for at least a year. Hundreds of people who would die if the airplane went down.
You all want to be so strict when there is a gun involved.
No mistakes just skip go and go directly to jail?
Exactly. Owning a firearm is a heavy responsibility. Nobody wants lackadaisical idiots wandering around with a death-dealing ego builder in their waistband or luggage.