Skip to footer

TSA finds record number of firearms at US airports in 2014

Among the weapons discovered were an assault rifle with three loaded magazines and a loaded folding-stock rifle with two loaded magazines.

|
Rick Wilking/AP/File
Transportation Security Agency (TSA) workers carry out security checks at Denver International Airport, in this 2010 file photo.
  • By Reuters

| Washington

A record number of firearms was found at US airport security checkpoints in 2014, and more than four out of five guns were loaded, the Transportation Security Administration said on Friday.

The number of firearms leapt 22 percent to an all-time high of 2,212 last year, more than triple the number in 2005, the TSA said in its 2014 summary. Eighty-three percent of guns were loaded.

Among the weapons discovered were an assault rifle with three loaded magazines and a loaded folding-stock rifle with two loaded magazines - both at airports in Dallas, Texas.

A loaded .38-caliber revolver was found at New York's La Guardia airport clipped to a 94-year-old man's belt.

Federal law bars bringing a firearm to an airport.

"The most common excuse that we hear from people is that they forgot they had their firearms with them," said TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein.

The number-two excuse for passengers was "'my husband packed my bag' or 'my wife packed my bag,'" she said.

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport was the top airport for guns discovered, at 120. It was followed by Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, with 109, and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, with 78.

Besides firearms, TSA officers found an Mk 2 fragmentation grenade in Los Angeles, a homemade avalanche control charge in Alaska, as well as fireworks, propane, spear guns, a flare gun, more than 700 stun guns, and smoke grenades.

Bag searches turned up inert explosives and artillery shells, an improvised explosives training kit, a replica Claymore anti-personnel mine, grenade launcher practice rounds and an unloaded cannon barrel.

Officers discovered contraband drugs, razor blades, brass knuckles, throwing stars, scissors and countless knives. An 8.5-inch (21.6-cm) knife hidden in an enchilada was found at the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport in California.

TSA screened more than 653 million passengers in 2014, up 14.8 million from a year earlier, the statement said.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to TSA finds record number of firearms at US airports in 2014
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2015/0123/TSA-finds-record-number-of-firearms-at-US-airports-in-2014
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe