Tuesday, May 03, 2016

Airport security is not just "security theatre"

Carry-Ons Bristle With Loaded Guns At Airport Security - The New York Times

Just last night, on SBS on Demand, I was watching for the first time (and with my son) Adam Ruins Everything, and it was pretty entertaining.

But the second one we watched spent time dissing American's TSA, and claimed that airport security was more "security theatre" than effective.

I said to my son that I don't find this a convincing argument, and today by coincidence, I come across this in the NYT:
Anyone annoyed at long airport security lines and
picayune-seeming inspectors should be grateful that watchful agents of
the Transportation Security Administration have been confiscating guns
at an unfortunately record pace from travelers who mindlessly pack them
in their carry-on bags.
This is plainly illegal, but last year, 2,653 firearms —
83 percent of them loaded!  — were seized from carry-on luggage, up 441
guns from the previous record haul in 2014. The pace keeps rising. In
the week of April 18, airport agents detected and seized 73 guns from
carry-ons, the most ever in a week. Sixty-eight of them were loaded and
27 had a round chambered and ready to be triggered. That violates the
most basic safety precautions that the gun lobby insists most
law-abiding, gun-carrying citizens carefully observe in indulging their
Second amendment rights in public.
Stopping a couple of thousand loaded guns getting on board aircraft is not mere "security theatre".

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