Originally Posted by
gsoltso
Please do not take what I am about to say as a defense of the individual in this case.
The most reasonable scenario (based upon statistics), is that this guy was irresponsible, and forgot the item was in his bag. A less reasonable scenario is that he had either the intent to carry the firearm for a personal reason (defense, etc), or that the individual had nefarious intent to pass the item on to another person as described above.
The security implications are serious, I agree 100% with you, and there should be a complete investigation into what happened - the individual should be prosecuted (if applicable) and punitively addressed according to agency regulations. This is an unacceptable occurrence, and there should be consequences, however, leaping to speculative theories without investigation serves none of us.
Would you please cite the reference for the statistics of TSA screeners taking guns work?
Who more than a TSA screener would understand the implications of entering a TSA checkpoint with a weapon? If as you suggest the screener "just forgot" that the weapon was in his "lunch pail" then I have to wonder if he had been taking this weapon to work on a regular basis and other TSA screeners failed to find the weapon or just looked the other way? Seriously, how do you pack your BLT and not see a handgun?
Think I will stand by my assessment until evidence is submitted that the screener did not act in a nefarious manner.