Atlanta Airport Tops Nation For Firearms Found In Luggage

ATLANTA — While Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is renowned for being the busiest airport in the nation, Thursday it earned a more dubious distinction.

Atlanta’s airport leads the nation in firearms discovered in carry-on luggage.

Again.

“They’re in the number 1 spot,” TSA spokesman Mark Howell said. “It’s the fifth year in a row they’ve been in the Number 1 spot.”

In 2020, TSA reported finding 231 firearms in passenger carry-on luggage, despite a significant reduction in the number of passengers departing from the airport for the year. Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport was second with 176 weapons found.

Howell tweeted an update this week.

While the number of gun discoveries decreased from 2019 to 2020 — Atlanta joined all Georgia airports with fewer carry-on firearms found — the more-than-50-percent drop in passengers for the year drove up the discovery rate.

TSA screened approximately 324 million passengers in 2020, only about 39 percent of the roughly 824 million passengers who passed through security checkpoints in 2019, according to TSA reports. That makes the discovery rate — 10.2 per firearms per million passengers — more than twice the 5 discoveries per million of 2019 and the highest rate since TSA began, authorities said.

The rate of discovery at Hartsfield was about half that of the national average as well, with a firearm found for every 99,583 passengers versus one to 49,093 in Atlanta.

The penalties for carrying a firearm to a TSA checkpoint include criminal citations, fines of between $2,050 and $10,250, and the possibility of losing privileged traveler status such as TSA PreCheck, but are administered on a case-by-case basis.