WAY too much credit. It's painfully obvious that the "weapon" status was a pathetic excuse for a TSA employee's attempted theft of what is admittedly a pretty cool cane.

They probably didn't realize exactly who Mr. Mayhew was.

eyecue, do you know what the local Denver ordinance about anything remotely resembling weapons is? And why TSA personnel at DEN are charged with enforcing it? Shouldn't violators of local statutes (like municipal rules governing photography, for example) be turned over to city LEs for handling?

Or do you mean the DEN FSD has a special interpretation of TSA rules that prohibits even a fantasy device or a photo on a T-shirt? If that's the case, is there a way for pax to check ahead of time to prepare for 'extra-strict' rules that are not documented on the TSA website and are only enforced at a particular airport?

A) TSA is not tasked with - nor empowered to - enforce state or local laws.

B) A lightsaber cane does not resemble any sort of weapon, because lightsabers are not real. There is no scare factor involved at all, because there is no such thing as a lightsaber, therefore a lightsaber cane does not resemble a weapon.

Are soccer balls prohibited because they resemble the Death Star?

Maybe not, but a toy Death Star might get extra scrutiny...

I was starting to second guess myself about light sabers and looked it up in wookiepedia. Looks like they do exist, after all. The interwebz say so.

I wonder how that situation would have turned out had it been a ordinary citizen and not a famous actor with a large twitter following. Actually I'm 99.9% sure I know how it'd have turned out.

What bothers me is the idea that TSA took a man's cane away from him even for five minutes. TSA HAS to figure out how to stop putting people with physical limitations at risk of a fall or worse.

This entire thread could be boiled down to this one question and the inevitable response:

Mayhew was interviewed on CNN this morning. Turns out social media did play a roll and the path from it to the farkwits was shorter than thought. He took the picture, typed up the tweet, then as he hit the "send" button stated to them, "I'm tweeting this." Suddenly the dangerous weapon they had assured him he was not going home with turned back into a cane and it was returned.

Interestingly, in the CNN interview Mayhew states that TSA had already determined that they were NOT going to let him take it, and told him "You're not taking this home, it's not going back to Dallas."

Then suddenly they reverse course and allow it after he mentioned Twitter. And they also specifically asked him to tweet that the cane had been given back to him.

So how does this square with your above comment?

Just like their magic garbage cans convert dangerous binary liquid explosives into harmless water...

Hmm, I may have to leave my hands behind on my next flight
considering I have some serious... ahem... martial arts skills.

How will TSA decide if I can fly or not with my credible weapons?

LOL

Depends on the scary factor.

Apparently that is more important to TSA than actual threats.

Just as it always has been. They can't actually make you be safe, but as long as the people feel safe, its a job well done.

It has occurred to me that some people should never leave their own houses, never mind fly on an airplane. It must suck to live with so much fear all the time.

Mike