Checking Luggage with Weapons
 

I just flew from PIT with my pistol in checked luggage. I haven't done this in several months and was surprised when the TA asked me to open my suitcase right there in front of all of the other pas and show her the weapon. I was used to doing this in semi-private confines of the TSA area. I thought it was a fluke, but then it happened again on the return trip at RSW. Does anyone know when this policy changed? This was mildly surprising for me, but I can tell you fellow pas in line around me were VERY suprised. And the woman TA in PIT didn't even know how to check if it was loaded and never asked me to prove it was not. At least the TA in RSW asked me to cycle the action and show him the empty chamber. I much preferred the old way when I could have a TSA agent examine my luggage in front of me and secure the lock in front of me before it disappeared into the black hole. At least in PIT I got to follow it over to TSA and warn them and ask them to do it all in front of me. That option does not exist in RSW.

Most airlines do use the "discrete back room" check. I also believe (someone else may be able to confirm) that regardless of screeners "checking" during that process, most airlines want their employees who are processing the paperwork or checkin to go thru these motions as well.

If you do the check in front of other passengers they know which bag to steal for a free handgun on arrival. Mildly scary. Is there anything done to prevent this?

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IME, it's not too hard to pick out many of the heavy-duty gun cases anyways. They also are usuaully the only bags with heavy-duty locks on them, since TSA requires most bags to be unlocked for potential searches. Most regular luggage has flimsy plastic locks at best.

On a recent flight, it was easy to spot several checked weapons, the big heavy plastic cases with 3" locks on them. Turns out it was a bunch of Air Force guys (in uniform) who picked them up at baggage claim.

Seems like the airlines sholud treat any locked bags like that as "special handling", i.e. not put them on the belt and confirm ID before releasing them to the pax.

I was thinking about handguns. Do people check handgun cases without putting them in a bigger bag?

Mine is always inside a small case inside my bigger suitcase.

If you declare a firearm at Alaska Airlines, it will be taken to the Baggage Customer Service counter and you will have to show ID and pick it up there. It won't be put on the "bag belt."

I've found that the gun-checking procedure varies with the ticket agent. A DL agent in PSC went ballistic and tried to find any reason she could not to let the gun on the plane (in the appropriate hardshell case, locked, unloaded, and the case inside another locked and checked bag). Then, not long ago, I came back through RNO with no fewer than seven guns (long story and already told here). The TA (again, DL) took my word that they were all unloaded, gave me a red tag to sign and place in each case, and sent me on to TSA.

As with the TSA, there doesn't seem to be a lot of consistency./

How do they know what bags have guns in them? The bags are not permitted to be marked externally as containing a firearm....

The airline can certainly have a record in their system and flag it when the bag tag is scanned coming off the plane.

How do you figure this is happening?

I sign a little tag, put it in the bag, lock it and put the airline destination tag that the agent gives me onto my bag, and walk my bag to TSA.

If I check my bags with my familys bags (so now Im checking 6 or 7 bags) there is no way for them to know which one of those contains a gun.

I do this all the time, and there is absolutely no way for them to tell which one has the gun, which is the intent of the federal law. The law was designed to HIDE any indication of guns in bags. The old way of doing thing included an external tag so the baggage handlers knew that there was a firearm in the bag. Guess what... the bags disappeared or the guns were removed from bags. This is what led to the change in the law.

Ive flown several airlines out of many airports and never once were they able to tell what bag I checked had the firearm.

When did they start scanning every bag as it came off the plane? From my observations, they get offloaded, dumped on a cart in a huge pile with nobidy scanning the tags, then put right on the baggage carousel for passengers to retrieve.....

Given your description, I'm not sure how they could do it. I assumed they recorded the bag claim number of the gun luggage in their system, but if they don't, your guess is as good as mine.
I don't know for a fact that they scan every bag, but my recent experience (mostly on UA) leads me to believe that they do. Any time a bag of mine has been delayed, the airline has been able to give me the exact time & place that it was last scanned, which is frequently at my connection airport. They could be scanning it at some intermediate point, but it would seem to make sense to have a record of each airport where the bag arrived, either at the plane or as the bags are being put onto the conveyer belt. Since a lot of the baggage handling is usually out of sight, I don't know whether they're actually doing it or not.

Airlines are no longer permitted to record any information about what luggage has what. IF alaska is doing it, they may be violating the rules..

The tag you put inside your bag shows up in an Xray as a particular shape, so the TSA knows its been declared. Thats the only way the airline/TSA should know you have a gun in your bag.

What's the rationale behind this? Is it to prevent some sort of conspiracy between airline workers to single out individual bags, e.g. for theft, smuggling, etc.?

Back to the original question of whether someone who saw your gun at checkin could simply swipe your bag at bag claim -- it sounds like they could. However, that wouldn't be an airport security issue, just a issue of luggage theft, since the gun would be reclaimed outside the secure area. I would think that a thief looking for valuables could probably do just as well grabbing a large checked bag from overseas that's likely to contain some valuables (camcorders, etc.), and that might be less risky than stealing from a gun owner! :)

(Of course, you could argue that the gun owner would be without his weapon(s), but what about his buddy who's meeting him at the airport? :) )

basically. It prevents thefts, plus if someone makes it through security without a gun, they can look for a flagged bag, take the gun out, and cause mischif.

Ive only had one TSA screener open my bag when I had a gun in it. It was at JFK and they are a bunch of gun phobic, ignorant screeners. It was an absolute pain dealing with those morons.

They definately do NOT follow TSA or FAA guidelines, instead they make things up as rules and do what they can to be a thorn in your side.

You should have heard the screener YELL! "Hey lookit dis" when he saw the outline of my gun (with the unloaded forearm tag right next to it) in the bag.

They made me stand there for close to an hour while they called a Police Officer over to make sure that he would allow me to continue to have my bag conbtinue on to my destination.

Here is the text of the US Code that prohibits labeling the bags:

"No common or contract carrier shall require or cause any label, tag, or other written notice to be placed on the outside of any package, luggage, or other container that such package, luggage, or other container contains a firearm."


A quick search shows guns stolen from luggage:


On Alaska Airlines:

http://www.fcw.com/blogs/archives/ed...m_readers.html


On United airlines.... mentioned that they maked the baggage tag with FFFFFF on it..... so everyone knew what to open and steal:


http://www.joehuffman.org/firearms/g...nesstories.htm

If I'm traveling with just my primary (SIG P226) then it goes into its own (locked) hardsided case inside my checked bag and the ammo goes into a separate Pelican box. If I'm traveling with more, then everything goes into a Pelican 1650 case http://pelican-case.com/1650.html secured with two 3" shielded-shackle locks. Each firearm inside the 1650 is in it's own locked case...that allows me to take an individual weapon with me leaving the rest safe and secure.

I've only had 3 noteworthy incidents when checking weapons. The first was when the TA said that she needed to verify the firearm was unloaded. I told her yes *they* were and that usually, that's what prior TAs have wanted: my verbal verification. She insited she had to check. So, after having her repeat herself 3 times, I unpacked all three, opened the slides and laid them up on the counter... I wish I had a camera to record the look on her face! I flatly asked her "You wanted to verify, how can you verify without inspecting the weapon?" At that point an older TA came over and shooed the guns telling me "Put those away!" and to the other TA "You just ask them if the guns are unloaded! If they aren't well then he <thumb-points to me> gets in trouble!"

Another instance was coming out of PHL. The *obvious* shotgun case goes through the CTX (in the ticket area) and sounds an alert. TSA weenie asks if it's my bag, I tell him yes, there's a shotgun (which you could clearly see in the outline) and the other bag has handguns. He then asks for the keys/combo to the cases? I asked why considering they are (a) unloaded and (b) he's not permitted to touch them? He gives some crappy excuse about SOP. :rolleyes: I figured I had enough time to complain if needed so I let him have the first set of keys. They open the shotgun case, peer inside declare "yup, that's a shotgun, pretty nice one too!" (Remington Marine in stainless) Then they close up the case and move on to the next one. Again, they open the Pelican, look at the ammo boxes, then open the pistol cases, comment on how nice my SIGs are and then close them all up and send them on. I have yet to figure out what that accomplished. :confused:

The last, and most potentially dangerous situation was again at PHL but a different terminal so the CTX machines were in the back. In that case, the TA calls for a TSA screener who tells me I have to unlock *all* the cases and let him take them to the back for screening! I said there was no way I would allow him to take the weapons out of my sight if they weren't secure espcially going into the secure part of the airport! :mad: He seemed miffed that I would challenge him so. I made him call an airport police officer who kinda shrugged but when I said the TSA guy was going to take an unloked case with firearms *and* ammo into the security area, well he perked up and said he would personally observe and make sure they were all locked up :cool: