Man Who Tried To Travel With Handgun At JFK Airport Arrested: TSA

QUEENS — A man was arrested after a security checkpoint detected he had an unloaded handgun in his carry-on while traveling at the John F. Kennedy Airport on Wednesday, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

The man from Sullivan County was stopped by TSA officials after they spotted an unloaded handgun packed in his carry-on alongside five bullets in a gun magazine, TSA officials said.

Port Authority Police arrested the man on a weapons charge, officials said.

The man said he was unaware of how the gun and loaded magazine came to be inside his bag, and that the gun didn’t belong to him, according to TSA.

The man from Liberty, New York, could face a penalty of up to $15,000 for bringing the firearm to an airport checkpoint, officials said.

TSA officers have detected four firearms at the airport’s checkpoints so far this year, according to the agency. In 2022, officials found seven guns at JFK Airport.

Nationwide, 6,542 firearms were caught at 262 airports last year.