Pgh. Airport Not Alone In Huge Number Of Gun Confiscations

FINDLAY TOWNSHIP, PA — With more than two months left in the year, the Transportation Security Administration has confiscated an annual record-tying amount of loaded guns at Pittsburgh International Airport.

But Pittsburgh isn't the only airport that has seen a proliferation of people trying to get their loaded weapons through a security checkpoint this year.

Over the weekend, TSA officers stopped a man with his get a .38 caliber handgun with seven bullets - including one in the chamber - in his carry-on luggage. The handgun confiscated from the man, of Harrison Township in Allegheny County, was the 35th stopped this year.

That ties the record number of guns confiscated set in 2019. It also marked the fifth gun taken away at the airport's checkpoint in the last two weeks.

That's happened despite repeated warnings from TSA officials here that attempting to get a gun through a checkpoint can have significant consequences.

“Bring a gun to our checkpoint and you will face a stiff federal financial civil penalty that could cost you thousands of dollars,” Karen Keys-Turner, TSA’s federal security director for the airport, said in a statement after this latest incident. “Make no mistake, there is a high cost for gun owners who think that they can stroll through a checkpoint and onto a plane with a gun.”

The gun problem is not unique to the Pittsburgh airport.

Officers at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Monday caught a traveler with a loaded handgun at a checkpoint on Monday, bringing the total number caught so far this year to a record-setting 36 guns.

The previous record of 35 guns caught was set just a year ago.

Last week, TSA officers at John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH) discovered a loaded firearm in a passenger’s carry-on bag, bringing the total detected at the airport to 41 this year.

The previous annual record was 40 firearms, again set last year.

During the year's first three quarters, TSA officers confiscated 5,072 firearms at airport security checkpoints. The agency said that at the current pace, the record number of 6,542 weapons prevented from getting onboard aircraft will be surpassed.

On average, the TSA confiscated 19.8 firearms per day at checkpoints, of which more than 94 percent are loaded.

"Passengers may travel with a firearm, but it must be in their checked baggage,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske. said in a release.

“Firearms are only permitted in checked baggage, unloaded in a locked hard-sided case and must be declared to the airline when checking the bag at the ticket counter. Firearms are prohibited at security checkpoints, in the secure area of an airport or in the passenger cabin of an aircraft even if a passenger has a concealed carry permit or is in a constitutional carry jurisdiction.”