Carl Johnson

It's you who has to "read between the lines" (that is, to draw interpretations from things that nobody actually said) to draw your conclusion.

Exactly (except, only about 42,000 (19 x 2,212)

No we wouldn't. Somebody either forgets they have a gun in their carry-on, or else they just want to carry it on so they have it when they land. Why would we hear about it? You think the TSA has actually stopped somebody from using a carried-on gun to attack a plane? Seriously? Wouldn't real attacker try to sneak their guns past the checkpoint, and wouldn't they succeed?

No, the reason for the 5% figure is that the TSA is so busy looking for water, juice, breast milk, and cupcakes, that they don't pay attention to much else. If you focus on water, you will find some every day and feel like Junior Detective, and if you focus on figuring out whether a cupcake's frosting is gel or not, you really feel like Junior Detective. Compare that with looking for guns, day in, day out, and never finding any (because guns at the checkpoint are exceedingly rare).

Boggie Dog

If I slipped a gun through a TSA checkpoint I damn sure wouldn't be bragging about it until well after my flight.

Boggie Dog

I don't have any direct knowledge of the skills or training the OIG testers had or used and unless you do then none of us know exactly how these tests were carried out and what support they had in preparing for the tests.

Are you prepared to share what you actually know?

Section 107

Yup. Read above.

T-the-B

Spot on. According to the DOT there were 775,672,000 revenue passenger boardings by US air carriers from July, 2014 through June, 2015.

Granted some of those were international flights outside the auspices of TSA, but there were also lots of US boardings by passengers on non-US carriers that were subject to TSA scrutiny. Also, a passenger on a connecting flight counts as two boardings but only has to pass through security once.

Assuming that TSA would miss 95% of all guns taken through the checkpoint would mean they would miss 42,028 (2022*19) guns per year while screening an upper bound of 775,672,000 passengers. This would mean that roughly 5 out of every 100,000 passengers going through screening would have an undetected gun. Assuming that every passenger was on a connecting flight it would be 10 out of 100,000. That doesn't mean the guns make it onto the airplanes. I would think most people who inadvertently get a gun past security would try to get the gun secured outside the sterile area as soon as possible.

Do I believe that 5 to 10 out of every 100,000 passengers are carrying guns past security? I don't have any experience that would allow me to tell. Do I think TSA could miss that many guns in a year's time? I've got more than enough experience with TSA to say yes to that question.

Carl Johnson

But we did already. The problem is that we can't see where you told us anything you know

Boggie Dog

@:-)@:-)

Section 107

What would it take for that problem to be rectified for you?

Carl Johnson

For you to tell us something you actually know, as opposed to telling us your guesses and "reading between the lines".

I mean, look at this:

What is this, a reductio ad absurdum? If so, it fails, because there's nothing about that possibility that's in any way difficult to believe.

And this:

You don't explain why this statement is necessarily true.

So far, you've told us nothing you know of your own knowledge.

Section 107

You still haven't told me what it is you require to accept what I have written is what I know.


Yes, it is my belief that 44,240 guns are not being presented (artfully concealed or otherwise) at checkpoints and it is my belief that 42,028 (95%) of those guns are not passing through checkpoints undetected.

Here is one reason why I believe such (perhaps I am doing the math incorrectly and if so I know you will correct me). Let's use DCA and its 20,810,387 pax in 2014 as an example and apply your assumptions (50% are connecting so only half go through a checkpoint) and numbers (a rate of 10 undetected guns per 100,000 pax [actually this would be 11.4 but we will err on the conservative side]).

This equates to roughly 1040 total guns being presented at the checkpoints. A 95% failure rate predicts that 988 guns will go through undetected. But it also predicts that 52 will be detected.

However, only 14 guns were detected at DCA in 2014.

So the reality check leaves us with only a few possibilities: the screeners at DCA have a ludicrously low detection rate even compared to the abominable 5% assumed average rate, DCA is substantially under-reporting the number of guns detected, or the guns simply are not being presented at the checkpoints. There may be others but I think these are the most likely.

I believe the most reasonable possibility is that there just aren't that many guns being brought to checkpoints.

Which, by the way, fits with your statement that guns at checkpoints are "exceedingly rare." (No, I don't accept 5 per 100,000 as equaling "exceedingly rare.")

Also, plain common sense tells us that if tens of thousands of guns (not to mention all the other prohibited items) were making it through checkpoints undetected with any kind of regularity there would be news media stories galore about it. Not to mention stories from the all the private "gotcha" bloggers and others, let alone the reports from regulators.

Boggie Dog

I think focusing on guns is a red herring.

Even a person just introduced to viewing x-ray images should be able to pick out a gun in most cases. And if I am not mistaken the x-ray units used by TSA have target detection capabilities built in to help the operator focus on items of possible concern. If the gun is being carried by the person then a WTMD or WBI should alarm on the item.

What the 95% failure rate suggests to me are more difficult target items, many if not all being human borne, and not subject to x-ray detection. That leaves WTMD, WBI, ETD, and manual pat downs as the only means to find these target items.

Depending on what combination of screening devices were used I think it is conceivable that a pancake type weapon attached well to a persons body could go undetected with any of these screening methods except ETD if it works as well as TSA seems to claim. I have my doubts on the ETD since alarms on common household items are so common.

I have limited knowledge on specialized weapons but a fairly good grasp on conventional and special weapons, explosives, and firearms.

My thoughts are that TSA is screening for common threat items that would have been likely 20 years ago and probably does a fairly good job at that but is not in a good position to detect highly specialized weapons deployed by a well trained and funded opponent. On top of that TSA expends way to much energy on finding things that are down right harmless and present no threat.

The one thing that TSA will never address is what would happen if a person with a bomb was detected at the checkpoint. My suggestion is that rather than completely failing the mission they would detonate the weapon at the checkpoint and based on how TSA has compacted travelers into such small areas do almost as much damage as if airborne.

Today's TSA screening methods are out of date, look for the wrong things, and really make air travel not much safer than it was on 9/10/2001,

T-the-B

Another explanation is that I either made a mistake in my math or used an erroneous number for the annual rate of passenger boardings. If we use a number of 14 guns found at DCA and assume a 5% detection rate that would mean that only 280 guns were presented and 266 went undetected, or a little less than one per day. Frankly, that number does not seem unreasonable to me.

I know for certain that it is possible to have a knife in one's carry-on and successfully navigate TSA security hundreds of times without detection so my confidence in TSA being able to reliably catch weapons is pretty low.

Carl Johnson

You are not even claiming to be talking about anything you actually know. You're just speculating and making assumptions - mostly in the form of "If A is true, that means B is true; I don't believe B is true, therefore A is not true."

themicah

Fixed:

Carl Johnson

I think the explanation is that the analysis to which you're responding depends on an unsupported assumption - that the average rate overall applies without exception at each sampling point. And yeah, like you suggest, one reasonable explanation is that DCA didn't get 5 guns per 100,000 passengers, they only got 280 guns. It isn't necessarily that DCA clerks detected guns at a lower than average rate (although that's certainly possible); it could be that passengers traveling out of DCA brought guns at a lower than average rate.