The Transportation Security Administration says that within the first nine months of 2021, it confiscated a record number of firearms from passengers at security checkpoints making their way to board U.S. flights.
TSA officers at roughly 248 airports nationwide discovered and seized 4,495 firearms from passengers by Oct. 3, marking a 20-year high, according to the statement from the agency. This is an increase from 2019 when TSA confiscated 4,432 firearms, 87% of which were either fully or partially loaded.
“The number of firearms that our TSA officers are stopping at airport checkpoints is alarming,” David Pekoske, an administrator with the TSA, said in the statement, adding that “firearms, particularly loaded firearms” have no place in the passenger cabin of airlines, let alone the fact that they pose an “unnecessary risk at checkpoints.”
Officers from the agency discovered 11 firearms in passenger carry-on bags per million passengers screened so far this year.
The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport had the highest number of gun seizures, roughly 391, followed by Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Berry Field Nashville Airport, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, and Denver International Airport, which all saw 100 or more guns taken.
Firearm confiscations at security checkpoints have slowly been rising within the past couple of years, with the TSA reporting that 4,200 airline passengers had been stopped in 2018 and had seized 4,239 firearms, a 5.5% increase from 2017, which saw nearly 4,000 firearms confiscated. In 2016, TSA agents apprehended 3,391 guns from passenger carry-on luggage.
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TSA noted that during 2019, passengers attempted to go through security checkpoints at airports with thousands of banned and dangerous items. Among the normal prohibited items such as loaded guns, ammunition, and knives, the weirdest things included a survival flare pen, a box of fireworks, a calculator which not only contained batteries but firearm ammunition, as well as a bottle containing more than three ounces of synthetic urine.
The Washington Examiner reached out to TSA for a statement but did not receive a response back.
