Originally Posted by
chollie
Yeah, somewhere the focus shifted from "Is this item conceivably a threat?" to "Is this the focus item of the week or is it on a list or is it just something I haven't seen before so I'll just take it because I can."
I know of an STSO who put in over a decade at TSA before finally quitting who claims to have never seen an item confiscated that was an actual threat to aviation security.
That seems unlikely, given the number of firearms that are confiscated on a daily basis at airports around the US. And personally, I do consider firearms to be one of the few legitimate threats to aviation security that TSA actually attempts to interdict (with abysmal failure rates, to be sure, but at least if they say a gun is a threat to the aircraft, I actually agree with them).