I was in a NW gate area at CVG yesterday waiting for a flight to DTW.

In the gate area next to me (destination = MSP) two security people (not sure if they were TSA or local police or some other authoritarian organization) were approaching people and asking if they could poke this device into their carry-on bag.

The device looked like sub machine gun, it was held by the operator as if it was a gun, and the tip of the barrel of this thing was poked inside the bag. At the butt-end of this gun-looking thing was mounted a display or control unit about the size of a paper-back book.

I would imagine it's a chemical sniffer of some sort. No idea why they had to make it look like a small machine gun. Anyone seen anything like this before?