While TSA Talks Breathlessly About ‘Loaded Guns’ Recovered, It’s Actually a Good Sign

TSA is an agency created to combat terrorism that has never caught a terrorist. That’s not a positive sign for them at all, to be sure.

What they do manage to do, though, is catch people who have guns somewhere on their person or luggage. Since the TSA has never caught a terrorist, they breathlessly report these catches to show people that they’re doing their jobs.

Because frankly, no one can really tell otherwise. Even those who fly have a hard time telling if TSA is actually looking for bad guys or just going through the motions.

So they announce how many guns they find.

I’m of the opinion that I should be able to carry my gun on a flight without jumping through all the hoops and keeping it in my luggage, especially as I’ve had my luggage not arrive with me and then had the airline drop it off at the wrong house as the cherry on top. But TSA doesn’t care about my opinion.

They care about this:

All but three of the 130 guns found by Transportation Security Administration officers at checkpoints at Alabama airports last year were loaded when they were intercepted, the agency said Wednesday.

“This is a safety concern for our officers and the travelers in the checkpoints, especially because nearly all of these firearms were loaded,” said Tara Corse, TSA federal security director for Alabama.

“We commend our officers for their vigilance as we carry out our mission throughout the year to keep the traveling public safe.”

At Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, 69 of the 71 guns were loaded. Of the 33 confiscated at Huntsville International Airport, 32 were loaded, according to the agency.

Every other airport in Alabama where guns were found, the firearms were all loaded: Mobile Regional Airport (15 or 15 loaded); Montgomery Regional Airport (eight of eight loaded); and Dothan Regional Airport (three of three loaded).

TSA officers intercepted 130 guns at airport security checkpoints in the state in 2024 — a 23% increase from 2023, when 106 were caught in 2023.

Huntsville International Airport recorded the largest increase in Alabama. Officers found 33 firearms at security checkpoints compared to 20 interceptions in 2023.

Now, there’s a perception that loaded guns are more dangerous than unloaded ones, and that’s probably a fair perception as far as it goes. An unloaded gun is less likely to be used to hurt others–too many people have been killed with “unloaded” guns to say there’s no chance of them being used.

However, in most of the cases we’ve seen where someone was found with a loaded firearm by TSA, what we tend to hear is that the person forgot the gun was in the bag. This meshes with the fact that it’s loaded.

See, a loaded gun in a place the TSA is incredibly likely to look, such as just sitting in a carry-on bag, is a gun that wasn’t actually intended for anything nefarious.

Where TSA needs to be concerned are unloaded guns and guns that are actually hidden, even if they’re hidden in something ridiculous.

Those are people who are trying to get away with something. They’re either trafficking guns in general or are just trying to take a gun they can’t legally possess somewhere else where they can’t legally possess it.

The guns that are reported in stories like this aren’t really a threat, though TSA is going to try and spin it as such.

They have to justify their existence somehow.