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by Rebelgecko 2705 days ago
TSA takes people's guns away on a daily basis. Eventually a passenger may not want to cooperate. I dislike airport security as much as anyone else (and because I opt out of the body scanners I've had plenty of undesirable intimate experiences with TSA agents), but their Instagram page is really enlightening. Sadly the guy who ran it passed away last year, but it's interesting to see the volume of contraband that people try to bring on planes. I think only 1 TSA agent has been killed while on duty, but a few more have been shot and and survived
3 comments

Remember before all the TSA nonsense, airports had metal detectors and xrays operated by airport security? Did they not also prevent guns from being carried on planes?
Isn't TSA just Airport Security ?
No, it's also a power and money hungry agency. The airport security of yore just did their jobs and were a lot more pleasant to deal with. The traveling public was just as safe.
And perhaps more safe. Security theater is a real thing and gives people a false sense of security.

I've heard that the reason we haven't had a major terrorist attack in the US since 9/11 was because of vigilance of the public. If people get lazy and start trusting that the TSA will competently do their job, we're likely to have another. I think it's because the TSA is pretty bad at their jobs that we haven't had anything major attack.

Airport security didn't try to extort you into buying pre-clearance, or try to enforce ridiculous and pointless rules.
I don't think local airport security back in the day had a nationally organized no-fly list.
I wondered why the feed wasn’t as good these days; that’s really sad. He was really funny, and it was so unusual to associate humor with (in my experience) the most humorless branch of the federal government.
An old project manager of mine flew with a gun once. It was entirely legal, because owning guns is legal, and flying is legal. It just had to be checked out and put away safely.
Flying with one in your carry-on is illegal for regular people. You can check one in your luggage but there's some special rules that sometimes the TSA and airline staff aren't familiar with (you must use a lock that is not TSA approved, you're not allowed to let TSA or airline staff borrow the key, stuff like that). The only time I traveled with a gun it was simpler (and cheaper!) to just mail it to myself.
Yeah, that's pretty stupid. It should never be cheaper to mail something small, like a gun, than to carry it with you.