In late June, the Transportation Security Administration started an Instagram account in which they post images of the weirdest, wackiest, weapon-iest prohibited things that they pull out of the luggage of screened air travelers.
And yes, that does exclude things that people tend to use for personal, sexual gratification. However, that does mean that guns, knives, stun guns, fireworks — basically, anything that’s designed to explode or cut things — is fair game.
What’s really interesting is when one realizes that there ARE such as gun-knives — and that there are people who think they’re okay to bring in their carry-on:
- blog.TSA.gov
- I honestly didn’t think this was a real thing until now.
For what it’s worth, the TSA nailed the caption: “The perfect #knife to bring to a #gunfight was discovered in a carry-on bag at #Cleveland #Hopkins #airport”
Now, astute readers will note that the image above was linked from blog.tsa.gov, not the TSA Instagram — that’s because (along with the fact that I didn’t feel like fighting with Instagram to embed the image) blog.tsa.gov gives you the story behind the photos, along with exact metrics of what’s been confiscated.
For instance, from June 21-27, 44 guns were pulled from the luggage of passengers throughout the country.
Yes, there were that many people who either didn’t know (or worse, didn’t care) that they weren’t supposed to take weapons onto airplanes in this day and age.
So thanks, TSA — not just for the friendliest hands in the sky, but for helping us realize that yes, our fellow Americans are still that stupid.
[h/t: John de Dios, via Petapixel]
This article appears in Jun 27 – Jul 3, 2013.
I am just as concerned about this as I am about the story last week about a Sun Tran bus rider with his AR-15 locked and loaded (so to speak) on a morning bus route–makes me really want to leave my car home and hop on the bus-not!
HOW, do you KNOW, it was loaded…? Did the gun hurt “anyone”…? Are we going to have TSA Grabbers at all the bus stops…?
So “a”, did you personally witness this “locked and loaded” AR? Do you know what “locked and loaded” means? Paranoia run amok.
Based on the photos, the kid was sittin’ on a stacked mag. I doubt if anyone was gonna check if there was one in the pipe. Regardless of how you feel about guns, it was bad form.