Screeners have spotted more than 4,000 firearms in carry-on bags so far this year, CBS News’ Kris Van Cleave reports:
The Transportation Security Administration has found a record-breaking number of firearms in carryon bags in 2018. At airports across the US, security officers found more than 4,000 guns that passengers tried to bring onto planes throughout the year, according to a CBS report.
This year’s numbers even top 2017, a year in which the number of guns discovered at security checkpoints climbed 17%.
Out of the 4,000 guns found in carryon luggage, 300 of them were found at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport alone. In fact, according to CBS’ analysis of the data, only 10 airports were responsible for a third of all the firearm incidents. Gun laws tend to be looser in the states where these airports are, CBS said. Many of the passengers involved in the incidents seemed to have accidentally brought the firearm through security, ostensibly forgetting their gun was in the bag.
* 771.5 million (771,556,886) passengers traveled securely through 440
federalized airports in 2017. That’s over 2 million travelers a day!
* A record setting 3,957, firearms were discovered in carry-on bags at checkpoints across the country, averaging 76.1 firearms per week. That’s an average of 10.8 firearms per day.
* 3,324 (84 percent) of the total firearms discovered were loaded.
* 1,378 (34.8 percent) of the total firearms discovered had a round chambered.
* The most firearms discovered in one-month – a whopping 29 – were discovered in August at the Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL).
* Firearms were intercepted at a total of 239 airports.
* There was a 16.7 percent (556 more) increase in firearm discoveries from 2016’s total of 3,391.
Police documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request by CBS also showed at least three incidents where TSA officers missed a gun in a carryon bag, only detecting the firearm on the passenger’s flight back home.
Video by CBS News/Kris Van Cleave from CBS Minnesota via DME[/vc_message]
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