Record Number Of Guns Seized At U.S. Airports, Including Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA, PA — Philadelphia International Airport is among several around the nation that have seen record high numbers of travelers boarding airplanes with guns in their carry-on luggage this year, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said.

The agency said that 42 guns have been caught at Philadelphia this year, the highest ever. As a comparison, there were 39 in 2021, 225 in 2020, 20 in 2019, and 25 in 2018.

Perhaps more notably, 88 percent of the record 6,301 firearms caught nationally were loaded, the TSA said.

As holiday travel picks up — with 7.2 million Americans expected to pass through airports over the next couple of weeks — the TSA expects that number to increase to about 6,600. That would represent a nearly 10 percent increase over 2021’s record level of 5,972 firearms.

Firearms are never allowed in carry-on bags, regardless of whether a passenger has a concealed weapon permit issued under local or state laws, which vary greatly across the United States.

Airline passengers can travel with firearms, but they must be unloaded and locked in a hard-sided container in keeping with TSA requirements. Passengers must declare them at check-in and also contact the airline ahead of their arrival and ask about specific firearm and ammunition carriage policies, the agency said.

“The most common reason given by passengers bringing a firearm into a checkpoint is ‘I forgot that was in the bag’ or ‘Someone packed my bag for me,’ ” TSA spokesperson David Fritz said in a statement to The New York Times.

An increase in firearms ownership coincides with the increase in the number of guns intercepted at TSA checkpoints. In 2020, an estimated 16.6 million adults in the United States bought a firearm, compared to 13.8 million in 2019, according to a study published online last year in Annals of Internal Medicine.

The number of weapons stopped at U.S. airport checkpoints has increased sharply since 2010, when screeners intercepted 1,123 guns. The only year in the 12-year period when firearms in carry-on bags dipped below the prior year was in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hammered the airline industry.

In response to the increase in gun interceptions, the TSA has raised the maximum civil penalty for a violation to $14,950, depending on the circumstances. Additionally, those who violate the TSA policy will have their pre-check eligibility revoked for at least five years.

The agency said it may conduct enhanced screening for those passengers who bring a firearm in their carry-on, and depending on the location of the airport, they could be arrested on the spot.

“When a passenger brings a firearm to the checkpoint, this consumes significant security resources and poses a potential threat to transportation security, in addition to being very costly for the passenger,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said in the news release.