goalie

I think even a blind visually impaired person could have found the items depicted in the photos in this week's body count

• 33 Firearms Discovered This Week
• Samurai sword discovered in a carry on bag at BOS
• Artfully Concealed Prohibited Items

• Sword discovered in carry-on bag at CMH
• Octagonal sais and shukos discovered at MDW.
• Stun Guns – 12 stun guns were discovered this week in carry-on bags
• Two Airsoft guns were discovered this week in carry-on bags
• M-1000 fireworks discovered in carry-on bag at MDW.

http://blog.tsa.gov/2014/07/tsa-week...word-stun.html

tyberius

How do you artfully conceal a 42" sword in a 22" carryon bag?

Also the one thing this blog has taught me is THERE'S GOOD BUSINESS IN SELLING CREDIT CARD KNIVES!

How do I get in on this action? I had no idea they are so popular. Plus, supply is being actively taken off the market. Score!

gsoltso

All you have to do is get the production rights, have them manufactured, stockpile them, and "give" them away on Facebook for the mere price of "shipping and handling" (at about $6, the group doing so is making roughly $4-4.50 on each one). Advertise in a few knife mags, and on a few knife sites, et voila, you too can be comfortable on the back of a knifes edge.

goalie

Don't poke the bear

• Bear Repellant: Eight ounces of bear repellant was detected in a carry-on bag at Phoenix (PHX).
• 42 Firearms Discovered This Week
• Inert Ordnance and Grenades etc

• Credit Card Knives

• Artfully Concealed Prohibited Items

• Stun Guns: 17 stun guns were discovered this week in carry-on bags

http://blog.tsa.gov/2014/07/tsa-week...-firearms.html

RadioGirl

Wait just a minute.

Are you telling me that bear repellant is not allowed on commercially scheduled flights? What if there is a bear attack on board?? What if suicidal ideologically-driven bears try to take over the flight deck?? How are the passengers and crew meant to defend themselves?? How can we prevent such bears from boarding in the first place unless someone has bear repellent??

Someone needs to leak this recent intelligence to Eric Holder ASAP. Think of the children.

ETA: Over at the BA board, there's a report of damaged hold luggage that indeed looks like the work of Bears. So don't tell me it can't happen.

ND Sol

This is one of them "foreign terrist" bears from north of the border. Look at the evil eye he was giving me as I was able to board before him and steal all the overhead space. Do you think a BDO would have picked out that nefarious intent? (See the unaccompanied minor tags? )

84fiero

It's suspicious that there was no escort for that UM

This is really becoming a serious problem with these bears. I was seated next to this one the other day on a JFK-LAX flight. Note that he was allowed to take a liquids container clearly exceeding 3 oz so I was scared the whole flight what he might be up to as he smeared the suspicious "jelly-like" substance all over. What's more, the Captain refused to make an emergency landing...

goalie

And this week's drivel is....

• 43 Firearms Discovered This Week
• Inert Ordnance and Grenades etc

• Artfully Concealed Prohibited Items

• 16 Stun Guns were discovered this week in carry-on bags

• 1 Airsoft gun was discovered this week in a carry-on bag at the Denver (DEN)

http://blog.tsa.gov/2014/07/tsa-week...-firearms.html

WillCAD

They're really going nuts with the credit card knives, aren't they?

Makes me wonder whether there has been a surge in idiots trying to carry them through the c/p - very possible - or if TSA has simply circulated a memo reading, "Find all credit card knives! They are the number one threat to aviation and not one can be missed! Forget guns, bombs, or water bottles, find me those credit card knives!" Or, you know, TSASpeak to that effect.

shenxing

What about credit cards that can be used as knives? I've often thought about sharpening one edge of my metal CSP

gsoltso

I actually think it is more related to an increase in availability, I mean, you can get these things for like $2-3 online, and even cheaper in secondhand stores and novelty/head shops. I remember when there was the metal business card about 7 years ago that some folks were using that was a multi-tool, with one half of one side sharpened down and serrated. When that first burst on the scene, we had one here, one there, then we had a flood of them as they became more popular - I can not recall seeing one for at least 3 years now, so they seem to have dropped off the radar at this point. Back to the credit card knives, they are a neat tool to have (especially if you are like me and grew up with a pocket knife always in your posession - even now, everywhere BUT work, I have a knife on me), and they are fairly popular right now. I anticipate that they will fade some in popularity over the next couple of years and we will see fewer of them found (as quirky items like this tend to run like fashion fads).

Side note, with these items I think it is the same type of situation that pocket knives and multi-tools are in the vast majority of cases - someone simply forgot them, not that the people carrying them are stupid. People are so used to having these items on them that they do not think of them when they are packing to travel, they are simply a part of their normal accoutrements.

chollie

(bolding mine)

Kind of like medical nitro, huh? Except the loss of one's medical nitro is more likely to have life-threatening consequences than the loss of one's pocket knife.

goalie

Dude-where's my pot?

• 80 Pounds of Marijuana*
• 50 Firearms Discovered
• Artfully Concealed Prohibited Items

• Inert Ordnance and Grenades etc

• Miscellaneous Prohibited Items

• 1 Airsoft gun was discovered this week in a carry-on bag at the Lubbock (LBB

*"While we are looking primarily for explosive devices, it’s difficult not to see 80 pounds of it. When discovered, contraband is reported to local law enforcement"

http://blog.tsa.gov/2014/07/tsa-week...rearms-80.html

WillCAD

Holy.

Poly.

Oly.

They actually discovered three knife keys. Three. Not one, by accident, but three.

I simply cannot fathom that the difference between a key and a knife key would be glaringly obvious on the x-ray. Heck, it may not be visible at all. Which means the TSOs at BGM are looking at individual keys on travelers' rings to determine which are knives.

Meanwhile, I wonder how many actual threats got missed by TSOs whose attention was wholely dominated by fanning out keychains to look for knife keys.

I wonder if the x-ray operators at BGM automatically call for a bag check when they see a ring of keys inside a carry-on.

For those who don't know what a knife key is, here are links to a couple of typical versions:
http://www.amazon.com/Tool-Logic-KEY.../dp/B007MC6XJ6

http://www.walmart.com/ip/SOG-Key-Sh...Knife/27735928

http://www.amazon.com/Key-Shaped-Fol.../dp/B0041VJWSK

RadioGirl

Well, they missed all of the (typically 40 to 80 per week) credit card knives, for a start, as there's not a single one mentioned.

Not that credit card knives (or knife keys) are an "actual threat."