(Photo: TSA)
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – TSA officers detected a handgun in a man’s carry-on bag at the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport check point on Sunday.
The .38 caliber handgun was discovered just five days after TSA officers detected a loaded semi-automatic handgun in a woman’s carry-on bag at the same airport on August 9.
The man was stopped after a TSA officer saw the gun as it was going through the checkpoint x-ray machine. The gun was unloaded, but the carry-on bag had 15 loose bullets and another 50 bullets in its ammunition box inside.
Neither guns nor ammunition are permitted past a checkpoint.
Once they detected the gun, TSA immediately contacted airport police, who confiscated the gun and cited the man on a weapons charge.
TSA can cite someone up to $12,000 for violating laws related to airport security, but the typical first offense for bringing a firearm to a checkpoint is $3,000.
“There is a right way to travel with a firearm and a wrong way. The wrong way is to bring it to a checkpoint,” a TSA spokesperson said. “Passengers are permitted to travel with firearms in checked baggage if they are unloaded, packed in a hard-side case, locked, and packed separately from ammunition. Then the firearm must be taken to the airline check-in counter and declared.”
Click here for more details on how to properly travel with a firearm.
