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TSA officers were able to prevent a man from King George from bringing an unloaded 9mm handgun onto a plane at Dulles International Airport after it was flagged by security as he entered attempted to go through checkpoint.
An X-ray captured the gun and alerted officers to the weapon in the man’s carry-on bag. Members of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police were then called in to confiscate the gun, and the traveler was cited on a weapons charge.
He alleged that he forgot he had his gun on him inside his carry-on, according to TSA officials.
The gun was recovered on the same day that TSA officers stopped a woman with a loaded handgun in her purse at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
John Busch, TSA’s Federal Security Director at Reagan National Airport said that travelers can still fly with their weapons, but only in checked bags, if they are unloaded and packed in a hard-sided locked case.
Those cases should then be taken to the airline’s check-in counter and declared as a precaution.
“The spring travel season is here and our security checkpoint lanes are very busy,” Scott T. Johnson, TSA’s Federal Security Director Dulles International said. “Our TSA officers are good at detecting prohibited and illegal items to ensure they are not carried onto a flight, and I’m grateful that our officers here at Dulles and nationwide are focused on the mission.
“I hope that this incident will serve as a reminder to others who own a firearm, to refresh their familiarity with the proper procedures on how to pack a gun for a flight,” he continued. “Firearms should never be brought to the security checkpoint in carry-on luggage.”
The number of firearms recovered by TSA officers at Dulles International Airport have been on the rise in recent years, up from seven as recently in 2020, up to 19 in 2021, and 25 in 2022. This year there have already been six weapons seized.
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