TSA agents at an Atlanta airport confiscated a record-breaking number of guns at security checkpoints last month, federal authorities revealed.
According to Transportation Security Administration spokesman Mark Howell, 30 weapons were found mostly in carry-on bags at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport during May.
That’s more than previously discovered at a single airport nationwide in one month.
‘People are so used to having guns with them all the time,’ Howell said, adding that most gun-owners simply forget the weapon is in their bag.
‘There is hardly ever an intent to do it on purpose,’ he said.
Thirty guns were confiscated by TSA agents at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport during May. Pictured is one of the firearms a passenger had in their carry-on bag
TSA posted the above image on Instagram writing that 84 guns were found in carry-on bags at airports across the country from May 21 to 27
On May 3, TSA agents recovered four guns from one passenger’s carry-on bag. The same thing happened a few days later on May 6. On May 26, one passenger was found with three guns in a carry-on bag.
Howell said ’80 to 90 per cent of the time, the gun is loaded’.
When a firearm is discovered at a security checkpoint, the police are called and the passenger could arrested and/or be fined as much as $13,000. Howell said first-time offenders are subject to a $3,900 fine.
By the end of May, TSA workers had confiscated 108 guns at Atlanta’s airport this year, an increase from the 91 guns discovered by this time last year. Across the country, more than 1,700 guns have been discovered so far this year at airports.
The Transportation Security Administration constantly reminds gun-owners to check their carry-on bags before arriving to the airport. In an Instagram post on Wednesday, TSA said 84 guns were found in carry-on bags at airports across the country from May 21 and 27.
70 of the firearms were loaded.
Officials said 80 to 90 per cent of the guns confiscated are loaded
A TSA spokesman said most of the time gun owners forget the weapons are in their bags and don’t intentionally try to bring them on a plane
Passengers are permitted to fly with guns in checked baggage if properly packaged and declared. Guns must be unloaded, packed in a hard-side case, locked and stored separately from the ammunition. The gun must then be given to the airport check-in counter where it will be placed with other checked baggage.
In 2014, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal signed the ‘Safe Carry Protection Act’ into law, expanding where people can carry guns in Georgia.
That same year security checkpoint staff discovered that rapper Waka Flocka Flame, whose real name is Juaquin Malphur, had a handgun in his personal carry-on at Atlanta’s airport. A jury later acquitted him, and his lawyer said the rapper had accidentally taken his wife’s bag to the airport without knowing the gun was inside.
In February 2017, guitarist Rick Derringer pleaded guilty to bringing a loaded gun to the airport after he arrived in Atlanta on flight from Mexico with a gun in his bag.