During 2023, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) intercepted a total of 6,737 firearms at airport security checkpoints, preventing them from getting into the secure areas of the airport and onboard aircraft. Approximately 93% of these firearms were loaded. This total surpasses the previous year’s record of 6,542 firearms stopped at checkpoints and represents the highest one-year total in TSA’s history.
“We are still seeing far too many firearms at TSA checkpoints, and what’s particularly concerning is the amount of them loaded, presenting an unnecessary risk to everyone at the TSA checkpoint,” said TSA Administrator David Pekoske. “Firearms and ammunition are strictly prohibited in carry-on baggage. Passengers are only allowed to travel with an unloaded firearm, and only if they pack it properly in a locked, hard-sided case in their checked baggage and first declare it to the airline at the check-in counter.”
In 2023, TSA screened more than 858 million individuals, which indicates the agency intercepted 7.8 firearms per million passengers, a drop from 8.6 per million passengers in 2022.
In the fourth quarter of 2023, which ended Dec. 31, Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) stopped 1,665 firearms at checkpoints. The total represents an average of 18 firearms per day at TSA checkpoints, of which nearly 93% were loaded.
When a firearm is detected at a security checkpoint, TSOs immediately contact local law enforcement, who remove the passenger and the firearm from the checkpoint area. Depending on local laws, the law enforcement officer may arrest or cite the passenger. TSA does not confiscate firearms.
In addition to any action taken by law enforcement, TSA fines passengers who bring a firearm to a TSA checkpoint with a civil penalty up to approximately $15,000, revokes TSA PreCheck® eligibility for at least five years and may conduct enhanced screening to ensure there are no other threats present.
For more information on how to properly travel with a firearm, visit: The transporting firearms and ammunition page on TSA.gov. You may also view the complete list of penalties on TSA.gov.
Terrorists Plan To Sue TSA & Law Enforcement Over Intercepted Firearms
When asked about the increase in numbers of firearms that have recently been intercepted at airport security checkpoints, terrorist spokesman, Mahmoud Ali Hassan, told the New York Times on Wednesday: “It’s definitely a problem for us. We make the utmost effort to try to conceal these firearms from the TSA, but apparently we’ve come up short – which means we need to go back to the drawing board and to devise new techniques to conceal these weapons.”
“However, looking at the bright side of things,” Mr. Hassan noted, “50,000 terrorists from abroad have manged to sneak into the US to join our vast number of sleeper cells countrywide, and we’ve also managed to smuggle into the country approximately 200,000 firerams, 15,000 shoulder-fired missile launchers, 160,000 grenades and about 275 suitcase nukes. So, all in all, I think we’ve got ourselves a pretty good smuggling operation, despite the recent setbacks we’ve been having with the TSA.”
Mr. Hassan also told the NY Times that, “the ‘International Association Of Sleeper Cells’ plans to file a $200 million law suit against local US law enforcement agencies if the firearms that were confiscated by the TSA are not returned to their rightful sleeper-cell owners.”
“We didn’t risk sneaking into this country just to be treated like second-class citizens,” Mr. Hassan asserted, “the right to bear arms must be applied equally to all inhabitants of this country, foreigners and non-foreigners alike.”