When flying with firearms, make sure to check your carry on bag before you fly. Definitely don’t forget a spare loaded P3AT magazine in your carry on. That might create some difficulty for you. More later.
UPDATE: In Houston waiting for connection to Philly. I have to say, Phoenix TSA and Phoenix Police Department are great. More later.
And when flying home from a weekend in Colorado, make sure you empty all the brass and dud .22LR rounds from the previous day’s shoot out of the pockets of your jacket.
Trust me on this one.
My carry-on luggage got through security with a single .45acp cartridge in the pocket of the pants I wore at the range the previous day. Don’t try this at home, I just happened to get lucky.
Better yet, don’ fly. Say no to terrible customer service and security theater.
….and if you DO find yourself at 30,000 feet with the seat kicked back, a fresh sprite open and America outside under the wing…and then you NOTICE a loaded Glock mag butt sticking out of the camera case?
Don’t bother mentioning it to anyone. You aren’t a terrorist and they would only hurt themselves.
I know of at least three times I accidentally carried a fully loaded 9mm magazine onto commercial airplanes. They never noticed.
TSA stands for A Security Theater.
Hah sounds like you found out that is a bad idea. Make a habit when packing to check all guns and ammo and make sure they are properly packed.
I’ve carried a single Sierra 168 grain Matchking on a keychain for years in the unzipped front pouch of my carry on Domke camera bag. They have never been near it through more than ten searches and screenings. I dropped it in there when they stole Ann Coulters bullet charm off her bracelet just after this idiocy got started.
These folks couldn’t find a real terrorist in a bag of potatoes. It’s just theatre.
Whoops!
My dad once realized he had a Sig P220 and four magazines on a plane.
When flying with firearms, make sure to check something larger than a .380acp …
Oh, that’s what I thought you were going to say.
Yeah, I managed to get home after taking two flights (there and back) to discover a .40S&W round in the bottom of my carry-on back pack. Departure and arrival airport was OHare.
Ah well. All’s well that ends well.
I remember a TSA person in Texas once tell me “we’re just trying to make you feel safer, that’s all.”
Frigging idiot … idiot not because he was correct, but idiot because he didn’t know it.
Sheesh. And I get put on the terror watch list for an “explosive” CPAP machine.
Bastids in Houston stole the matching lighter out of my cigarette case when I was flying out of that S***hole. That lighter had flown with me all over the world. Before I let them take it I broke the top so is was unusable.
security theatre indeed.
The Phoenix TSA is great?
This is the same group that pulled a senior citizen out of line in February 2002 for trying to smuggle aboard a “Ninja Star.”
Turns out the gent was responsible for downing 34 aircraft with the loss of life of everybody aboard!
The dude’s name was Joe Foss, former governor of South Dakota, Brigadier General in the SD National Guard, for 23 years host of the TV program “American Sportsman,” former president of the American Football League. He had just left a meeting of the NRA Board of Directors and was on his way to West Point to deliver a guest lecture on “Patriotism.”
The “Ninja Star?” It was the Medal of Honor given him by Franklin Roosevelt for downing 23 Japanese planes during the battle of Guadacanal.
When told he would have to discard his medal before boarding the aircraft, he is reported to have said “You’ve done fucked with the wrong Marine, sonny!”
The only way this sorry episode could be more bizarre is if it had happened at Joe’s home airport in Sioux Falls. The name of the airport is “Joe Foss Field.”
On a personal note, as I was waiting to board a plane at Sky Harbor airport, a diminutive TSA agenentte tapped me on the shoulder and said: “Excuse me sir, can I get you to do me a big favor?”
I looked down at her and said: “I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m married.”
The TSA does NOT have a sense of humor.
Joe Foss is a true American hero – and Joe Foss Airport in Sioux Falls, SD is the greatest airport I’ve ever been too. Why?? Its the only airport I’ve ever tually purchased ammo at, and looked at and considered buying a gun at.
Plus, they got a great bar!
Try flying with dart poison frogs. Back before 9/11 even a friend and business partner and I flew from Chicago to Baltimore to attend International Amphibian Day. We flew out there with some frogs we intended to sell/trade.
After the show we attempted to fly back with what frogs we had not sold/traded and our new acquisitions and they wouldn’t let us board with “those venomous frogs” as the airline guy put it. He’d seen local television coverage of the trade show it turned out.
I tried to appeal to reason, that they let us fly out here with frogs and now proposed to strand us. That despite the name, these frogs were all non-poisonous. That they would not survive in the cargo hold. Nope.
So we argued some more for a refund and rented a car and drove back.
I’ve heard it rumored that TSA agents have had their sense of humor surgically removed.
Other’s just say it’s a side effect of the lobotomy.
I’ve tried to verify both of those hypothesizes by asking some of the agents but they all seemed clueless.