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The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced today that it has intercepted 5,028 firearms at airport security checkpoints to date in 2024. This averages to 18.3 firearms per day at TSA checkpoints nationwide (more than 93% of them were loaded).
The TSA screened more than 678 million passengers between January and September 2024. This represents 6.3% more passengers than the 638 million traveling during the same period in 2023. In July, I wrote about the TSA discovering 3,269 firearms at airport security checkpoints during the first half of 2024. In 2023, 6,737 firearms were detected at airport security checkpoints and around 93% were loaded. This represented the highest total in the agency’s history and averaged 18 per day. This average has now been surpassed.
TSA Administrator, David Pekoske, said:
TSA is committed to keeping travelers, our officers, and airport employees safe, and the number of firearms being discovered at airport security checkpoints remains a significant challenge. Each firearm brought to a checkpoint, whether by accident or on purpose, presents a threat to other passengers and our employees, and causes delays for the traveler with the firearm. Passengers who travel with a firearm must store it unloaded in a locked, hard-sided case, place it in their checked bag, and declare it to the airline at the airline ticket counter. We cannot stress enough the importance of ensuring firearms are secured properly in the passenger’s checked bag and never brought to the security checkpoint.”
No one is saying that passengers cannot travel with a firearm, but they must be:
- Secured in the passenger’s checked baggage
- Packed unloaded
- Locked in a hard-sided case
- Declared to the airline when checking the bag at the airline ticket counter
Anthony’s Take: As much as people criticize the TSA and call it security theater, these findings are troubling and I’m glad that so many firearms were found before they were brought onto aircraft.
(Featured Image Credits: Jay Rembert.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
