4 Passengers Stopped With Guns At BWI Airport In 2021: TSA

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MD — In just one day, two individuals were stopped by Transportation Security Administration officers at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport for carrying loaded guns. In each of the instances Friday, TSA officers spotted the handguns in the travelers’ carry-on bags while the guns were inside the checkpoint X-ray machine. TSA immediately alerted the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, who arrived at the checkpoint, confiscated the firearms and detained the individuals for questioning before arresting them on weapons charges.

In the first instance on Friday, a Fallston, Md., man was stopped with a 9 mm handgun loaded with seven bullets, including one in the chamber. In the second instance on Friday, a Harrisburg, Penn., woman was caught with a .40 caliber handgun loaded with 15 bullets. In addition to their arrest, each individual faces a stiff federal financial civil penalty.

TSA reserves the right to issue a civil penalty to travelers who have guns and gun parts with them at a checkpoint. Civil penalties for bringing a handgun into a checkpoint can stretch into thousands of dollars, depending upon circumstances. This applies to travelers with or without concealed gun carry permits because even though an individual may have a concealed carry permit, it does not allow for a firearm to be carried onto an airplane. The complete list of civil penalties is posted online.

When an individual shows up at a checkpoint with a firearm, the checkpoint lane comes to a standstill until the police resolve the incident. Guns at checkpoints can delay travelers from getting to their gates. Passengers are permitted to travel with firearms in checked baggage if they are properly packaged and declared at their airline ticket counter. Firearms must be unloaded, packed in a hard-sided case, locked and packed separately from ammunition. Firearm possession laws vary by state and locality.

At the BWI Airport, 13 guns were confiscated in 2020 at TSA checkpoints despite the decline in travelers due to the coronavirus pandemic. In 2019, 27 guns were flagged at BWI Airport checkpoints, the highest level since 2016.

Nationwide, TSA officers detected 3,257 firearms on passengers or their carry-on bags at checkpoints last year, although the total number of passengers screened at airport checkpoints across the country fell by 500 million compared to 2019 due to the pandemic. The result was that twice as many firearms per million passengers screened were detected at checkpoints in 2020 compared to 2019. In 2020, TSA caught approximately 10 firearms per million passengers as compared to about five firearms per million passengers in 2019. Of the guns caught by TSA in 2020, approximately 83 percent were loaded.