TSA: Record number of guns intercepted in nation's airports; NY not in top 10

Record numbers of guns — usually loaded — increasingly are turning up at airport checkpoints nationally, despite an almost $15,000 top fine, and some experts scoff at the typical excuse of a traveler’s errant memory.

“’Oh, I forgot,’ that’s not a valid reason,” said Ron Martinelli, of Corona, California based- Martinelli & Associates, an expert in criminology and law enforcement.

Travelers must declare firearms, which must be unloaded, secured and in checked baggage only. But last year, nationally, Transportation Security Administration officers found 6,452 firearms that fliers brought to airport checkpoints — an all-time high — the agency said in January. Some 88% were loaded.

“It was a significant increase from the 5,972 detected in 2021 and a spike from the 4,432 detected in 2019,” it said, which was before the pandemic.

And the momentum apparently has yet to subside so far this year. “As of Feb. 9, Transportation Security Officers have stopped 654 firearms at TSA checkpoints — almost 92% of them are loaded,” Mark Howell, TSA spokesman, said by email. That works out to an average of 16 every day.

“I think that more people are carrying guns than ever because the crime rates — we haven’t seen these crime rates since the 1970s, and back East, since the early 1990s, so people are traveling to different places where there are high crime rates,” said Martinelli. 

Major crime has gone up in New York City 22%, the NYPD said.

Major crime increased 41% in Nassau and 15% in Suffolk counties last year compared with 2021 — spikes top law-enforcement officials said were fueled by a dramatic increase in property crimes, according to police statistics.

New York’s airports, though among the nation’s busiest, did not even make the top 10 list of airports where guns were intercepted.

The U.S. airport with the highest number of gun-toting travelers in 2022 was the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, followed by Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

In New York, “The biggest jump in the number of firearms was seen at LaGuardia Airport where TSA officers detected 11 handguns in 2022, up from four caught in 2021,” the TSA said.

KennedyAirport was the sole New York City-area airport where fewer firearms were seized: just seven, down from nine the year before. Newark Liberty International had the biggest total: 14, up from 12; Long Island's MacArthur Airport again had zero. At Westchester County Airport, four guns were found last year, up from zero.

Nationally, only about half as many firearms were found in 2020 when coronavirus raged, canceling or delaying countless trips.

That total was only 3,257. Still, that was around a threefold rise from the 1,123 found in 2010.

As armed travelers generally live in states with concealed carry laws, Martinelli said, “They may not be completely informed but I don’t know why because everybody that ever traveled on an airplane should be informed that you don’t carry guns in your carry-on baggage.”

Saying the TSA still was discovering far too many firearms at airport checkpoints, Howell added: “Firearms do not belong in the secure area of airports or in the passenger cabins of airplanes. They represent an unnecessary risk at the TSA checkpoint and failing to properly check and declare a firearm can be an expensive mistake.”

To deter armed fliers, the agency in December raised the top fine to $14,950 — from $13,900 — though penalties are set on a case-by-case basis.

Violators also lose their TSA PreCheck eligibility for at least five years — may have to undergo “enhanced screening” to ensure they pose no additional threats — and depending on local laws, may be arrested, the agency explained.

“You pack your gun; ignorance is no excuse,” Martinelli said

Yet, properly permitted or licensed travelers’ firearms should not be seized, he said, simply because their flight connections take them through a state without concealed carry laws — or one that does not honor another state’s regime.

'There have been a number of instances I'm very well aware of where that has happened; it's completely unfair," Martinelli said.