TSA Catches Fredericksburg Man With Loaded Gun In Carry-On Bag

ARLINGTON, VA — Airport police issued a citation to a Fredericksburg man at Washington Reagan National Airport (DCA) in Arlington after Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers found a handgun loaded with seven bullets, including one in the chamber, in his carry-on bag.

The incident, which took place Monday, marked the 14th gun that TSA officers have detected at Reagan National Airport in 2019. In 2018, TSA officers at DCA caught 16 firearms at the airport's checkpoints.

On Nov. 25, a TSA officer spotted the handgun in the checkpoint X-ray machine, contacted the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police, who arrived at the checkpoint, confiscated the gun and detained the man for questioning before citing him on a weapons charge.

The man faces both criminal and civil penalties. The individual will be forced to pay some form of civil penalty from the TSA, according to a spokeswoman. The TSA has the authority to assess civil penalties of up to $13,333 for weapons violations. A typical first offense for carrying a handgun into a checkpoint is $4,100.

As for criminal penalties, since the airport is located in Virginia, the man would be charged under either the Virginia code related to carrying concealed weapons or the code pertaining to carrying a weapon in an air carrier airport terminal. Depending on a number of factors, including outstanding warrants, individuals such as the man at Reagan National Airport would typically be issued a court summons to appear at a later date and released, according to a Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority spokesman.

Nationwide in 2018, TSA officers detected 4,239 firearms in carry-on bags at checkpoints across the country, averaging about 11.6 firearms per day, about a 7-percent increase nationally in firearm discoveries from the total of 3,957 detected in 2017. Eighty-six percent of firearms detected at checkpoints in 2017 were loaded and nearly 34 percent had a bullet in the chamber.

In 2008, when TSA first started keeping track of the number of guns detected at security checkpoints, 926 were found by the X-ray machines across the country.