Is there anything in your carry-on that COULD be used as a weapon?
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 569
Is there anything in your carry-on that COULD be used as a weapon?
"Is there anything in your carry-on that COULD be used as a weapon?"
If you answer honestly? Yes...
...then you are in for a 'chat' - truth is? nearly anything could be used as a weapon - a BIC pen comes to mind. A nasty little tool if you know how to use it.
If you answer as they expect you to answer? No - then some nit-picker will (or could) make an issue of it IF you're carrying a pen with you.
Or is it best to just answer as the uninformed do with a simple 'no'?
If you answer honestly? Yes...
...then you are in for a 'chat' - truth is? nearly anything could be used as a weapon - a BIC pen comes to mind. A nasty little tool if you know how to use it.
If you answer as they expect you to answer? No - then some nit-picker will (or could) make an issue of it IF you're carrying a pen with you.
Or is it best to just answer as the uninformed do with a simple 'no'?
#3
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: Winter Garden, FL
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The question is often asked at overseas airports of flyers heading to the United States.
I always answer yes, and then start listing the things that could be used as weapons: pens, books, shoes, shoelaces, even my laptop could be used to strike someone! After a while, they just let me go. Never fails.
Bruce
I always answer yes, and then start listing the things that could be used as weapons: pens, books, shoes, shoelaces, even my laptop could be used to strike someone! After a while, they just let me go. Never fails.
Bruce
#4
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Northeast Kansas | Colorado Native
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DSLR Camera body, laptop brick, rollerboard, bare hands.. I guess the UA agent @ LHR this weekend is going to have to cut my hands off..
#5
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 15
all of it
Ask anyone who's worked in a correctional institution .. practically anything can be turned into weapon.
A toothbrush (or anything plastic) can be sharpened into a shank.
Anything metal can be sharpened into a knife (particularly dangerous would be the stainless or aluminum poles in the handles of carry-on if sharpened into a spear point).
etc. etc.
A toothbrush (or anything plastic) can be sharpened into a shank.
Anything metal can be sharpened into a knife (particularly dangerous would be the stainless or aluminum poles in the handles of carry-on if sharpened into a spear point).
etc. etc.
#6
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You can garrot somebody with dental floss. You can blind someone by spraying deodorant in their eyes. You can give someone an unwanted tracheotomy with a ballpoint pen. You can knock someone cold with a laptop battery. You can remove someone's eye with a knitting needle. You can use the tiny file on a nail clipper to saw a Coke can in half, then slash someone's throat open with the resulting edge. The possibilities are endless.
#7
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Newport Beach, California, USA
Posts: 36,062
You can garrot somebody with dental floss. You can blind someone by spraying deodorant in their eyes. You can give someone an unwanted tracheotomy with a ballpoint pen. You can knock someone cold with a laptop battery. You can remove somone's eye with a knitting needle. You can use the tiny file on a nail clipper to saw a Coke can in half, then slash someone's throat open with the resulting edge. The possibilities are endless.
But you're right. Forget carry-ons -- my keys could make serviceable brass knuckles, my necktie a garrote, my pin a stabbing instrument, and my shoe a sap. Even a rolled-up magazine can make a club.
#8
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 53
You can garrot somebody with dental floss. You can blind someone by spraying deodorant in their eyes. You can give someone an unwanted tracheotomy with a ballpoint pen. You can knock someone cold with a laptop battery. You can remove someone's eye with a knitting needle. You can use the tiny file on a nail clipper to saw a Coke can in half, then slash someone's throat open with the resulting edge. The possibilities are endless.
#9
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Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: ORD/MDW
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Posts: 19,714
#10
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Southern AZ
Programs: Bellanca Turbo Viking, AA Gold/Plat
Posts: 54
lets see -
break the glass in my laptop - now you have sharp glass
shoelaces as a garrotte
insulin from diabetics is a weapon in those not diabetic
swing my laptop in the bag is a pretty good 5lb bludgeon
thats off the top of my head - no idea what a decent CIA trained killer can find and use - so the answer is ALWAYS yes.
break the glass in my laptop - now you have sharp glass
shoelaces as a garrotte
insulin from diabetics is a weapon in those not diabetic
swing my laptop in the bag is a pretty good 5lb bludgeon
thats off the top of my head - no idea what a decent CIA trained killer can find and use - so the answer is ALWAYS yes.
#11
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: IAD, and sometimes OMNI/PR. Currently: not far from IAD, but home will always be SAN (not far from the "touch my junk and I'll have you arrested" Memorial TSA Check Point) even if I'm not there so much these days.
Programs: UA, CO, Calcifer Award for Mad Haiku Skillz
Posts: 5,076
#12
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: North of DFW
Programs: AA PLT, HH Gold, TSA Disparager Gold, going for Platnium
Posts: 1,535
This is always a fun topic that simply 99.999999999999999999% of clerks dont get at all. There view of the world is so narrow its not funny. Its sad that I have a 1 minute SNL monologue that just shows how stupid TSA is. They like to argue that a <1" blade on a mini leather is a threat, but yet the following list in my carry on isnt, in reality a pocket knife is a non threat.
Forceps
Mini-Medic bag (full bag of torture devices that can also save your life)
Trauma Shears (can cut quarters with ease as well as bone)
Fiskar scissors (surgically sharp and are a 2n1 with the screw removal)
Stethescope
Blood Pressure Cuff
Glucometer
Chop sticks
Wood pencil
Bic Ballpoint pen
Cross Pen
Canon 5DmkII w/ Canon 70-200 L IS lens
Tripod
Monopod
Lightstand
Flash unit
Rechargable Batteries
Laptop
Powersupply and cord
magazine
Spoon
Spork
Nalgene bottle
and so on between my backpack and rollaboard there are more then a few.
Then there is my mind and body, that is the most dangerous combo there is because with my bare hands I have the power to save lives or end them.
Just about anything can be used as a weapon, which i will second the jail comment as i have seen some very ingenious weapons and ways of hiding them.
woo hooo 1000th post
Forceps
Mini-Medic bag (full bag of torture devices that can also save your life)
Trauma Shears (can cut quarters with ease as well as bone)
Fiskar scissors (surgically sharp and are a 2n1 with the screw removal)
Stethescope
Blood Pressure Cuff
Glucometer
Chop sticks
Wood pencil
Bic Ballpoint pen
Cross Pen
Canon 5DmkII w/ Canon 70-200 L IS lens
Tripod
Monopod
Lightstand
Flash unit
Rechargable Batteries
Laptop
Powersupply and cord
magazine
Spoon
Spork
Nalgene bottle
and so on between my backpack and rollaboard there are more then a few.
Then there is my mind and body, that is the most dangerous combo there is because with my bare hands I have the power to save lives or end them.
Just about anything can be used as a weapon, which i will second the jail comment as i have seen some very ingenious weapons and ways of hiding them.
woo hooo 1000th post
#13
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: London
Programs: US Gold
Posts: 627
"Is there anything in your carry-on that COULD be used as a weapon?"
If you answer honestly? Yes...
...then you are in for a 'chat' - truth is? nearly anything could be used as a weapon - a BIC pen comes to mind. A nasty little tool if you know how to use it.
If you answer as they expect you to answer? No - then some nit-picker will (or could) make an issue of it IF you're carrying a pen with you.
Or is it best to just answer as the uninformed do with a simple 'no'?
If you answer honestly? Yes...
...then you are in for a 'chat' - truth is? nearly anything could be used as a weapon - a BIC pen comes to mind. A nasty little tool if you know how to use it.
If you answer as they expect you to answer? No - then some nit-picker will (or could) make an issue of it IF you're carrying a pen with you.
Or is it best to just answer as the uninformed do with a simple 'no'?
I just say, "I hope not." That seems to me to cover all the bases.
They also sometimes ask if you have anything that *looks* like a weapon. Once, many (15-20) years ago, I was pulled over for 2ndary inspection for what looked like a suspicious object. It was a toy model of a Concorde jet I had bought in the airport just before going through security.
wg
#14
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 37
"Is there anything in your carry-on that COULD be used as a weapon?"
If you answer honestly? Yes...
...then you are in for a 'chat' - truth is? nearly anything could be used as a weapon - a BIC pen comes to mind. A nasty little tool if you know how to use it.
If you answer as they expect you to answer? No - then some nit-picker will (or could) make an issue of it IF you're carrying a pen with you.
Or is it best to just answer as the uninformed do with a simple 'no'?
If you answer honestly? Yes...
...then you are in for a 'chat' - truth is? nearly anything could be used as a weapon - a BIC pen comes to mind. A nasty little tool if you know how to use it.
If you answer as they expect you to answer? No - then some nit-picker will (or could) make an issue of it IF you're carrying a pen with you.
Or is it best to just answer as the uninformed do with a simple 'no'?
#15
Join Date: Jan 2010
Programs: UA 1P
Posts: 148