Airport security in America discovered more than seven guns per day in 2015
economist.com
economist.com
Is the actual headline. And it's one I find fault with. The mere presence of a gun in somebody's bag does not imply "smuggling".
As alien as it seems to us in the UK (and elsewhere), there are certain parts of the US where people think absolutely nothing of carrying a gun around with them all the time. I have little doubt that some percentage of these finds are just due to forgetfulness, and not to any malign intent.
Last time I flew it was almost mandatory to go through the body scanner. The time before that it was only every 10 people or so.
It's a truly amazing phenomena, no doubt part of the re-normalization of carrying guns (saw my first open carrier at Wal-Mart yesterday, that's newly allowed in Missouri as of a year or so), and the graying of America (a large majority of the people taking my Missouri required concealed carry class were older sorts).
But if you're e.g. reading this from California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, etc. vs. the 43 states with shall issue or better concealed carry regiemes, you could easily know little to nothing about it.
You're right: most people simply don't mention it. In most of the US, guns are simply not a big deal.
I can't find any stats, but I wouldn't be surprised if the number of people killed by aggressive use of shampoo was close to zero.
A friend of mine tried to bring his gun through security. He had it in an outside pocket of his duffel bag and just forgot it was there. It's just another thing that you carry around with you. It seems lost on some people that these are deadly weapons and it may be good to treat them with a modicum of extra respect. It never occurs to my friend that someone could take his bag, discover the gun, and kill someone with it, even though he never would. That it could be a kid that shoots themselves or someone else in complete innocence. My friend is indeed absent-minded but I don't think that covers it fully. It is a certain mindset, and a fairly prevalent one especially in the South.
One clarification request: loaded if revolver, round in chamber otherwise?
Carrying requires a different mindset, and that mindset doesn't admit the sort of forgetfulness under consideration here. That's the main reason why I usually don't carry.
You would have to be absent-minded, but perhaps not quite as absent minded as you might think.
In some parts of the US (4% of Texans have a carry license) it's wallet, keys, phone, gun.
Someone may indeed include a firearm in their "EDC" but there should be a constant and sharp distinction between that item and all the rest.
If you are not hyper aware of a firearm you are carrying, you should not be carrying that firearm - no matter how routine it is.
I certainly put more awareness into my surroundings, which could be key to my using it successfully if needed.
You're acting like I treat my wallet and phone the same way I treat a pack of gum.
In three years, the were two instances of two different security guards whom forgot they were carrying guns when they went to the airport. It happens so much.
The only solution was to stop buying new ones.
Imagine they started confiscating wristwatches and you'll get an idea of how easy it is to be that "absent-minded."
Funny, HN mods tend to correct headlines when it's not the same as the actual link's, but in this case they keep leaving it on like that. Is there any reason for the double-standards?
I found your own form of "moderation" of something you didn't understand amusingly childish.
I have a hard time thinking I wouldn't be constantly mindful of the fact I had a gun on me, and would never pack one in a bag, but I'm not everybody and I have never carried everyday. There are parts of rural America and some cities where it is done as part of their every day carry and no one blinks an eye. So I could see it happening.
Last time I did it (this was before 2001 and the police state hysteria we're in now) all that you had to do was get a little sticker for the bags handle at the check in counter (they asked us to show that the gun was unloaded.)
Not even a big deal.
There is no history of guns leaping up, loading themselves and killing people.
This is still the case, post-2001. You bring the firearms in a locked, hard case and you show the gate agent that they are unloaded, then you lock the case in front of them and they put some stickers on it.
The only sketchy part is, you have to take a firearm out in the ticket line to show it to the gate agent, who has a hazy-at-best understanding of whether that particular firearm is loaded or not.
You just check it at the counter, and they usually put a flag on the case to indicate it has been cleared (to make sure it's unloaded.)
I wonder how many of these are simply pieces where the flag was ripped off via the luggage transport system.
At airports I have had to mail back to myself a very nice engraved money clip multiple times. The reason? It has a 2" or so pocket knife type blade on it. Each time TSA treated me like I was trying to smuggle something when I put the clip in the bin for the xray machine. If I was trying to smuggle something I would not throw it in the bin with everything else.
One reason I've elsewhere referred to what's happening with skyrocketing legal concealed carry as a renorming, we're just returning to a not all that old normal.
I'm reminded of this story: A man accidentally had a loaded gun in his luggage, got past security, realized it in flight, and then reported himself afterward:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/loaded-gun-slips-past-tsa-scre...
As a gun owner, a CCW holder and a sometimes open carrier of firearms - privately and publicly - let me state in no uncertain terms: if you forget you are carrying a gun, you have no business carrying a gun.
The stat this article refers to is "catches", i.e. someone bearing a handgun without declaring it in this manner.
Any such error is troubling, but look at the stat in context: that's an average 7 occurrences out of an average of 2.2 million trips (emplanements) on an average DAY plus all the additional people who enter security to see people off and greet arrivals.
jimsojim used the HTML doc title, which is always a legit option, and in this case the better one because it contains more information.
So does that mean that thousands more weren't detected?
Do the undercover TSA agents not already know where the weaknesses are in the detection process?
Compare pen-testing: You want the best possible hackers, with as much information as possible, to take a swing at your system - not a bumbling amateur, even if the amateur accurately models 99% of your regular users.
Every time I check it as baggage, I get it back with a TSA certificate notifying that it was searched.
Of course, I'm probably on some list now as a result. So, I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
If the 7 guns per day corresponds to 4% found, that would mean that there are 7.0/0.04 - 7 = 168 guns per day not found.
That's abound 1/2 percent of flights (one in 172) where a gun got aboard undetected.
Of course it's the former that we really care about.
I do care about the fucking idiots who carry a lethal weapon but forget that they're carrying a lethal weapon, because those are the people who are less likely to keep that weapon away from tiny children. (Roughly one shooting a week in 2015 by children under the age of 3 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...)
That seems like an awfully contrived scenario.
We want those people to be discovered, and reminded to keep their lethal weapon in a safe place and to remember at all times where their lethal weapon is.
You're the one who doesn't understand.
The article says 83% of the guns found by TSA were loaded.
So perhaps we can concluded that the kind of person to absent-mindedly carry a gun in their carry on are the kind of people who also don't handle guns safely?
I was addressing the GP who said "you don't understand people don't transport loaded guns in their bag" when the article specifically said "83% of guns found in carry on bags were loaded." Which means people are clearly doing it.
I don't know the specifics of the safety of such a practice but I took GPs word on the topic that said practice was unsafe (or inadvisable).
Still, if your loaded gun is being discovered by the TSA in this fashion, you're violating Rule 2 of gun safety (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Cooper#Firearms_safety) and of course you might not know until it's too late that your gun has a manufacturing flaw, you screwed up maintaining it, and there are no doubt many old guns out there with marginal designs.
Here in the UK, a licensed firearm owner is strictly responsible for their firearms. Firearms may only be transported in a locked case, directly to and from their place of use. When kept at home, they must be stored in a police-approved safe. Accidentally bringing a firearm or ammunition to an airport would result in criminal charges and revocation of your license. Similar laws apply in most European countries.
That the TSA has a problem with intentional concealment is unrelated to careless gun owners, and anyways, means estimates about apples missed given how some oranges were missed aren't accurate, nor are they useful.
If the guns the TSA detects are carried accidentally, it seems that using x-ray or metal detectors to find them is overkill. Just ask 'please remove your laptop, liquids, and guns' before putting your bag through the x-ray.
If you know how the government works, that is the only plausible explanation.
I was so angry about all the hassle (hours of queuing, dozens of examinations, all for zero success) that I decided to go on, and have done it another 100-200 times since. Whenever I fly somewhere without checked luggage but will want to shave, I just take along my razor and a blade or two. My blades have been found twice and confiscated once.
A tip for other security-minded travellers: There's a brand of toothpaste called "one drop only" whose tubes are small enough to pose no risk to aircraft security, yet last long enough that you don't need a tube for each trip.
Frankly there should be shipping boxes at the molest-station, with the cost paid by the thugs that insist on stripping you of your personal property.
I was flying out of Paris and had bought some good ripe camembert cheese. I was flying without checked baggage, so I put it into my carry on. The lady at the security scan insisted the cheese was liquid. After a lot of back-and-forth where I was not getting anywhere, I commented exasperated: "If I had a cheese sandwich though, you'd let me pass?" to which she replied "Yes."
I stepped out of line, bought a baguette, spread the cheese on it, and passed through security without any issues. I made sure to get into the line in which I would have to be checked by the same lady. She let me pass and avoided eye contact.
It's surprisingly easy to disguise them in a bag of electronics and wires. They actually get pissy about my small screwdriver set, but ignore my razor blades.
As an explanatory back-story, I am not from the city. Carrying a knife is normal where I come from. I was less than 10 years old.
TSA at major airports is security theatre, plain and simple.
YMMV.
There are probably dozens if not hundreds of guns every day flying around the skies. Yet there is no danger. In fact, you could fill a plane with a fully armed Marine platoon, and there would be no increased danger.
The TSA collecting oddball trinkets and weapons and then reporting about them has always struck me as one of the weirder aspects of the war on terror. Since it's obvious that armed terrorists aren't being arrested at checkpoints, and since it's also obvious that the population has been traveling with these weapons for as long as there has been air travel, what, exactly are we proving? That people forget and leave scissors and knives in their carry-ons?
We are in the same spot here as we were with electronics just ten years ago. Everybody brought electronics on planes. Tons of people forgot to turn them off. We were given dire warnings about why turning them off was necessary. Yet planes kept taking off, flying, and landing safely. It wasn't that we were unsure whether or not these things were dangerous. Hell, we were conducting live experiments many times an hour that proved they were not.
Same goes for some business guy who left his pistol in his computer case. We already know these guys are not security risks. We've been testing it with real, live, people and weapons for many decades now.
TSA needs to be abolished. Immediately. Yes, we need flight security, but there are many drastically better ways of providing it.
ADD: Of the many things that concern me about the TSA is what we're seeing in this article. In order to continue justifying its existence, it will need more and more to make us afraid of our fellow travelers. This is the terrible consequence of 9-11: we're turning the Defense Industrial base against the very population it is supposed to be protecting. Very, very bad stuff.
Reasonable people are in favor of police and intelligence work that identifies people with both the genuine motive and actual means to seriously endanger the lives and/or property of others and provides reasonable assurance that those people will fail to harm others. This sort of policing is nothing new and has worked spectacularly well for many, many, many decades.
So, if that's what you mean by "psychological profiling", then yes. If -however- you're referring to TSA's SPOT teams and similar low-to-no-effort quackery, then no.
They will be banned from flying because they will be in jail awaiting trial for conspiracy to commit murder, or similar such charges.
If someone actually, legitimately poses a serious "danger to aviation", they should be charged, jailed, and stand trial. Do you disagree?
Note that if declared, it's legal to transport unloaded in checked baggage in the US, and unless things have drastically changed the airline etc. isn't going to wonder if possession is legal for you at your destination.
1% contain things that shouldn't be there (that's all they would say when telling us).
The port I was at (there are 25 I think) unload 14 million containers per year.
Those are pretty good odds for smugglers.
EDIT: they said random inspection but they would, wouldn't they
The system for gun/bomb detection is only as good as the agents responsible for it. For example, I saw my friend accidentally sneak a knife onto an plane two years ago. The metal detector flagged him, and he confidently told the official present: "Oh, it's my belt!" and after taking it off he walked through, with no further probing. He literally forgot about his EDC knife and wound up with it on the flight. It must be noted that this was in South Africa, but having travelled to both the USA and Europe, I know it could have happened there too.
The current system is not robust to human error, and this is its fundamental flaw. Con artists and psychologists know how to systematically induce human error [1, 2]. It is conceivable that malicious actors (or TSA people pretending to be) can do exactly that and reliably subvert a human detection system. As an aside, it would be interesting to see TSA people try sneak weapons onto an El-Al flight [see 3, 4, 5 for why]. A humorous anecdote: once when returning from Israel, I had my bag full of dirty clothes thoroughly man-handled by an irate woman from El-Al security. I had two books inside, each with a metal inset in the spine. As soon as this was found out, I went from being treated like a terrorist to a non-threat in a few seconds. It was remarkably efficient.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias
[3] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1001458258397595640
[4] http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/11/yeffet.air.securit...
[5] http://www.tabletmag.com/the-roll/102229/the-gatekeepers
Ha ha! What an American comment! Not only having a gun, but driving your own car to the Airport. Americans love guns but hate public transport! Hilarious!
Americans don't hate public transport, it's just simply not available like it is in Europe. A lot of this stems historically from automotive manufacturers buying up streetcar companies and then dismantling them to force people to drive and also the antiquated rail infrastructure that gives preference to freight cargo over passenger trains.
Not everyone lives in a town with an airport so many people have to travel 100 miles or more to the nearest airport which may not be possible to do via public transportation if you live in the countryside.
Since some very populous states, including #1 California and #4 New York are mostly no issue, the percentages are even greater in the 43 Shall Issue or better states, a number are getting up to 10%. The percentages are even greater when you adjust to the age eligible population.
So quite a bit higher than "no one", although of course having a licence does not equal routinely or always carrying.
It's not an American-only thing. I live about 20 km from the local international airport. It's 1 hour 20 minutes by train (at daytime), 20 minutes by car. Also, there's less walking if I drive. Which one shall I take? Not a difficult decision.
Personally, I think that forgetting you have a gun in your bag should qualify as criminal negligence at the very least.
Hoping not to get downvoted for honest opinion
and if i want to take a gun with me on a trip (where i'm legally licensed to carry, which is most states), i can already do that by checking it, like the majority of LAW ABIDING citizens do.
if there was actual INTENT to "smuggle" a gun on a plane, with which to do harm, then there's a news story here, but there isn't. it's liberal, gun grabbing, troll bait and an attack on legal firearms owners. move on.
</rant>
What are the odds that more than half of the passengers want to die in a terrorist strike?
So if we equipped all passengers with tasers, all terrorists would be caught. Of course, sometimes there might be some minor accidents, but they're not (very) lethal or harmful to the aircraft structure.
One change would result. You would have to pay the cabin attendants a lot more :) Also the safety instructions would take a while longer. They would show how to operate the taser in case your neighbor starts doing something suspicious.
BTW if you let all passengers have them, you'd be arming terrorists, sooner or later - all they have to do is use it on a pilot going to the bathroom, if they are ready to die they don't need anyone to land the plane.
Cute gag - the NRA would not "insist", and would not suggest "open carry" for tactical reasons either. To top it off, guns were allowed to be carried on board US airplanes till the 60s.