TSA Confiscates Toy Monkey's Toy Gun | Hacker News Reader

TSA Confiscates Toy Monkey's Toy Gun

loweringthebar.net

68 pointsmhb44 comments

"She said ‘If I held it up to your neck, you wouldn’t know if it was real or not,’ and I said ‘really?’"

Here's the crux of the matter - a two inch gun was taken because the TSA agent made a judgement call, and the TSA agent appears to lack judgement.

In other words, a potential highjacker would be a allowed to being a gun aboard if it is small enough and attached to a monkey? I dub this the "monkey loophole."

Actually...

"The SwissMiniGun C1ST is a double-action .09 caliber six-shooter that's just over two inches (5.5 cm) long weighing 0.7 oz (19.8 g). [...] The first product of the SwissMiniGun company of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, the C1ST is a miniature double-action (shoots each time you pull the trigger – no cocking of the gun required before shooting) six-shot revolver."

http://www.gizmag.com/worlds-smallest-revolver-swissminigun/...

With kinetic energy levels at the muzzle of an astounding .71ft-lbs.

http://www.swissminigun.ch/ammunition.html

Enough "stopping power" to seriously injure or kill a fruit fly. Probably not enough to hurt a regular housefly though. For that you need something more powerful... Like a fly swatter.

Ft-lbs? It's so weird. I am so glad that I learned physics using the metric system.

Ok... here's one that fires the .22LR cartridge (which is quite capable of inflicting a lethal injury)

http://www.impactguns.com/naa-22-combo-1-18in-22lr-22mag-cyl...

>Here's the crux of the matter - a two inch gun was taken because the TSA agent made a judgement call, and the TSA agent appears to lack judgement.

I don't think I can agree here.

I read this as "A two inch gun was taken because the TSA agent followed procedure over common sense and logic".

In all likelihood TSA agents are forbidden to deviate from the manual, which likely states that "replica guns are not allowed on airplanes."

The solution will likely be that the manual is amended to provide allowable dimensions for replica firearms, and TSA supervisors will be presented with tape measures to check to see if the gun in question is greater than the allowable 2 5/8" in length, and god help you if you leave home without first measuring your sock monkey's gun, or your stuffed bear's blunderbuss.

> I read this as "A two inch gun was taken because the TSA agent followed procedure over common sense and logic".

This defense fell apart the moment the TSA agent said "If I held it up to your neck, you wouldn’t know if it was real or not." In other words, she graduated from blindly following protocol to being an idiot.

What she meant (I think it's safe to assume) was something along the lines of...

  While it's obvious to you and I standing here examining it that
  it's a prop gun, if it were being wielded in a threatening
  manner, it would be far less obvious, and it's reasonable to
  assume that it could be perceived as a real threat.

Given the fact that there are several models of gun that small that are quite capable of killing you, that seems like a pretty reasonable argument to me.

I think you give the agent too much credit, but perhaps that was the thought process. I'll concede that point.

However, I still think it was a dumb argument. Note that the closest small gun you linked with any chance at being lethal was 4-5 inches long. A gun half that size, which someone would have to basically hold with their thumb and forefinger, cannot possibly be menacing in any circumstance unless you are a Smurf.

Maybe not - as others note in this thread there are real guns that could match the description of this one. Whether or not those guns are lethal enough to warrant being removed from a flight is a very valid question.

Before we cast aspersions on the TSA agent, let's look at it from her perspective. The TSA has rules that say replica guns are not allowed on flights. The TSA is not likely an agency that smiles upon its front line employees exercising discretion. Her options are:

1) to confiscate the "offending" item, as supported by her training and the TSA policies, or

2) to decide the item is not a threat and let it pass security.

If she takes the first option, she risks a bit of media hullabaloo being directed at the TSA. If she takes the second she risks being wrong (what if it is a gun and someone is shot, what if someone on the airplane sees it and panics because they think it is a gun,...) and being held accountable.

And even if she lets it go through what's to say a supervisor who is evaluating the front line agents doesn't take note of a deviation from training/policy and fire her then?

The TSA agent was acting, in my mind, completely rationally given the framework under which she has to act. If we want to blame anyone here we need to look straight to the system.

> The TSA has rules that say replica guns are not allowed on flights.

Could you link to those rules? TIA.

But that's just normal human speaking dynamics.

"Why are you making me do this stupid thing?"

(I cannot agree that this thing is stupid, because that makes my job, and thus me stupid, so I'll grasp at straws to defend this action) "It's not a stupid thing! Here's a justification!"

Really?

http://www.impactguns.com/naa-22-combo-1-18in-22lr-22mag-cyl...

That's a fully functional (and certainly lethal) gun, only slightly larger than the prop in question.

I'm about as anti-TSA a person as you'll find. I think the entire organization is broken beyond repair should be dismantled. I'm paranoid enough that my reason for always opting out of mm-wave scanners is that I think the government could be building a highly accurate database of people's bodies.

Even with my tinfoil-clad credentials... I think this was a pretty reasonable decision on the part of the TSA employee.

You linked to a gun with a one-and-an-eight-inch barrel and claim that the whole gun is barely larger than the two-inch gun that was confiscated. Your link shoots a .22 calibre bullet. What's the monkey gun gonna shoot?

The barrel length includes the majority of the revolver drum. The overall length of the weapon is a little over three inches.

It's certainly in the same ballpark, size-wise, as the prop in the article. Which, in my opinion, makes the TSA employee's actions reasonable.

Trust me... I think the TSA regulations are an absolute mess, and the vast majority are completely worthless.

"You can't bring carry things that look an awful lot like guns onto planes" seems pretty reasonable to me though... If it's really that critical that you bring your sock puppet prop with you, stick it in your checked bag...

My search history is now full of things like "tiny guns" "short guns" "small guns" "easy to conceal small guns" "mini weapons" etc.

I shouldn't care, but I am gently worried about it. 'They' win, I guess.

The TSA agent made a judgement call when she decided to not call the police.

When you read that, you know that each and every day, Ousama Bin Laden wins a thousand small victories as soulless "security" agents make americans (and travelers) lose freedom over an unjustified paranoia.

All that because of a single attack which produced an unsignificant number of casualties more than 10 years ago.

I don't think they could have envisioned that in their wildest dreams. And the best part is that the right wing extremists and security junkies are the terrorists' greatest allies, and still keep their legacy alive.

I agree that terrorists win when we lose freedoms, but saying the number of casualties was "unsignificant" is maybe a bit too much. 2,977 people is a lot of people. Each is significant.

Just for perspective, for every one person that died as a result of the September 11 attacks, around 167 Iraqi's died as a result of our invasion. And that might even be a charitable estimate.

That doesn't make our loss of nearly 3000 "unsignifigant" it just means that our response was deplorable.

I disagree, at a certain point it does.

Imagine the roles were reversed and some jerks from the US went and killed 3000 middle easterners. As a response they invade america and over the course of 10 years kill nearly 20,000% as many people as died in that original attack. Still call the death toll from the original jerks to the middle easterners significant?

You think I haven't gone through the basic thought experiment of imagining the roles reversed? That's why I was against going to war in the first place, even though I felt like the only person in the country who felt that way.

Regardless, each and every innocent life lost is still significant.

To be fair though, that can be 'said' easily. But dramatic human suffering is occurring all over the world right now and most people don't pay a whole lot of attention. So it isn't really all that significant in reality.

Without a closer inspection, I'd say it's perfectly plausible that the gun pictured in the article would be capable of discharging a projectile. Perhaps it's quite obvious when you look at it up close from several angles, but that was the TSA employee's point... it if was being used to threaten someone, they wouldn't necessarily be able to take the time to examine it...

As an example, here's a gun that's very similar in size to the prop, that is quite capable of killing you (and four of your friends):

http://www.impactguns.com/data/default/images/catalog/535/na...

Note that the gun you linked is 4-5 inches in total length. It's still quite small, but not similar enough in my opinion to a 2-inch prop gun.

EDIT: The gun is 3 5/8" in length.

At any rate, my problem is not the TSA agent's actions anyway, but her justification. If she had just shrugged and said "I know it's stupid but I have to confiscate this", then we wouldn't be talking about her. Instead, she heaped more coals on the already absurd security panic fire by suggesting that someone could be menacing with a 2-inch gun. This is the kind of crap that spawns memes.

Schools would impose severe punishments on a child that took that gun to the school. (http://www.freerangekids.com/suspended-for-a-keychain/) (http://www.clickorlando.com/news/boy-suspended-after-using-f...) etc etc.

There are real guns around that size, firing 2.34 mm rimfire cartriges. (apologies if I get any of this terminology wrong.) They do have the potential to be lethal weapons. But then so does the pencil I'm allowed to take on, and the glass and cutlery they give me when I'm on the plane.

But they confiscate airline cutlery from people going through security. Even if that cutlery was presented to the person flying. Even if that person is a pilot. The pilot, for the plane that they're boarding, and they're in full uniform, trying to get on the plane to fly it but being delayed while their airline issued cutlery is removed. http://www.cracked.com/article_16849_the-7-dumbest-things-ev...

>There are real guns around that size, firing 2.34 mm rimfire cartriges. (apologies if I get any of this terminology wrong.)

Your terminology is fine, but the key fact is that they generate less than a foot-pound of energy.

http://www.swissminigun.ch/ammunition.html

For comparison, .22 LR -- which is the least powerful common firearm caliber -- generally develops in the neighborhood of 75ft-lbs of energy.

A pellet gun is around 20 ft-lbs.

http://www.impactguns.com/naa-22-combo-1-18in-22lr-22mag-cyl...

Same general size as the prop in the article, capable of carrying 5 .22LR cartridges.

>Same general size as the prop in the article

No, it's not.

Overall Length 4 1/2"

Overall Height 2 3/8"

Width 13/16"

http://northamericanarms.com/firearms/lr/llr.html

Even a single shot derringer is going to be noticeably larger than that toy prop.

Could the bullet penetrate the skin if fired close enough?

I think a more interesting use for such tiny ammunition would be model tanks. There's definitely a market (also a lawsuit)there, I reckon.

Some airports sell beverages after security, then prohibit taking them on the plane. Mexico and South Korea have both done this to me. They then offer to sell more beverages on the plane. A pure racket.

In the US, large amounts of liquid are not allowed through security. But frozen liquid is allowed. I am not making this up. Just make sure your liquid is frozen enough to be solid as you clear security, and thawed enough to drink on the plane.

That actually makes sense. There are chemicals that look like water when in a bottle that can be used to make explosives. (Not easy, but remotely possible). They do not freeze like water.

Regarding your last paragraph, it does make sense to screen pilots (although it doesn't make sense to screen anybody in this way, as you point out). Security is not necessarily equipped to decide who is a real pilot and who is an impostor who bought a uniform online, and if pilots were allowed to take through dangerous items (and again, I agree that this stuff doesn't qualify) then that creates an easy path through security that you essentially invite attackers to take advantage of.

Pilots and other staff appear to have HSPD-12 identification badges, which are a lot harder to fake than buying a uniform online. Surely you've seen airport/airline employees swiping their badges at security?

Yes...so why are pilots "gate raped" (their term), while TSA agents and other menial employees are allowed to sail through security?

Harder to fake, but not necessarily hard. Remember that any and all security measures on an ID card, no matter how fancy, can be circumvented by a corrupt insider. (This is how the 9/11 hijackers got their "fake" IDs, for example.)

This reminds me of yesterday's post : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6881662

The criminalization of everyday life. Not that long ago (pre 9/11) the security officer in the airport would have called it cute or make a comment of the like. Today the traveler risked prison time and a permanent criminal record.

Guns don't kill people, sock puppet monkeys do.

This is what passes for intellectually gratifying on HN these days.

I suspect the TSA monkey wanted her own gun, so she stole it.

After (incorrectly) determining the impact of an theoretical bullet fired from the toy gun...

>All of which is to say that if a terrorist put it up to your neck, you would know whether it was real or not and whether to be worried. And you would then kick that terrorist's ass. [emphasis mine]

Only to find out the original calculations over-estimated any impact.

This made my day!!! This totally made my day!!!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com