Originally Posted by
Often1
Airports with high theft rates such as LGA have implemented random checks of bag tags, requiring the individual picking up a bag to show his bag receipt. There are FT threads with rants from people asking what authority there is to require this, asserting that their life is ruined and so on.
Total non-sequitur - the issue at hand is pilferage of bag contents in transit by those entrusted with the bags, not theft of whole bags at the carousel. That's a whole 'nother kettle of fish, and frankly it doesn't seem like much of a problem since 90% of the time the rightful owner of a bag is standing right there at the belt to pick it up, making theft highly unlikely.
Originally Posted by
Often1
On the preventive side, it really doesn't take that much to figure out who has put worthwhile stuff in their bag. Expensive luggage, locks, bag ties, fancy tags, and the like all up the prospect that someone puts anything other than their dirty clothes in a bag. For the same reason that you don't leave cash sticking out of your pocket, you don't put a sticker on your luggage saying "steal me - I put an expensive laptop in this case."
True, it is prudent to not advertise when your checked bags contain valuables. In point of fact, since bag pilferage is so easy and rampant, it is more prudent to follow the advice of just about anyone who flies more than once in a blue moon and never pack anything of value in your checked bags, ever, under any circumstances.
In the case of firearms, however, these are required by law to be securely packed in checked bags and declared to the carrier at check-in. I don't know whether a bag containing a firearms is required to be labeled as such, but given that it is required to be a secure, lockable, hard-sided case like those in the tweet that petaluma1 quoted, I think it's pretty safe to say that even if a gun case isn't labeled "guns inside", the secure nature of the case itself is a solid indicator that valuable items (firearms, electronics, or other) are inside.
I don't expect to see the end (or even a dramatic reduction to irrelevancy) of luggage pilferage until some time in the future when completely automated baggage handling from drop-off to pick-up becomes the norm. Such systems would be, I imagine, very expensive to implement, and very difficult given the infinite sizes and shapes of luggage and other checked items, but I'm sure it's coming, probably in my lifetime. If Amazon and McDonalds can implement automated order filling in their warehouses, the aviation industry can eventually implement automated baggage loading and unloading. And at that point, the only thieves we will have to worry about will be those among the screeners.