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Last August, I wrote about a loaded gun that fell out of a passenger’s laptop bag as he unzipped it at a security checkpoint at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT). The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is reported that the Arizona man was arrested on weapons charges and the gun was confiscated. Now, another passenger has had a run in with the law after he attempted to smuggle three firearms (one of them loaded) and ammo in his bag.
The Department of Justice issued a news release that states that Luis Rojas Cay, 26, was attempting to travel from Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) to San Juan’s Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU) on April 26th when the firearms were discovered. These included a loaded 9mm semiautomatic handgun, an unloaded 9mm semiautomatic handgun, an unloaded 40 SW caliber semiautomatic handgun, and about 204 rounds of 9mm ammunition. All of this was concealed in multiple layers of foil-backed tape and placed inside a metal briefcase.
Cay is a previously convicted felon and therefore prohibited under federal law from possessing a firearm. He now faces up to 15 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, or both.
This is far from the only time the TSA has found a firearm in a passenger’s bags. In January, I wrote that throughout 2023, the TSA found a total of 6,737 firearms at airport security checkpoints and around 93% were loaded. This represents the highest total in the agency’s history and averages at 18 per day. Firearms were found in 265 airports and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) had the highest total. More than 858 million passengers were screened last year, which means the agency intercepted 7.8 firearms per million passengers. This represents a drop from the 8.6 per million passengers seen in 2022.
Anthony’s Take: Guns do not belong on planes and even if this passenger had followed correct protocol for checking a firearm, it’s good the TSA caught this and that a convicted felon was unable to board with a bag filled with weapons.
(Featured Image Credit: US Attorney’s Office.)
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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.
