TSA catches 5th gun this month at Pittsburgh International Airport

TSA agents at Pittsburgh International Airport caught another gun the airport’s security checkpoint on Thursday, the fifth in February alone, officials said.

It’s the sixth time since the start of the year a traveler has been caught with a gun at the checkpoint. That’s roughly one gun every nine days.

Transportation Security Administration officers detected 21 guns at the checkpoint in 2020, and Karen Keys-Turner, TSA’s federal security director for the airport, noted that Thursday’s catch means they’re nearly one-third of the way to matching that in 2021 less than 60 days into the year.

“It’s inexcusable to bring a gun to a checkpoint,” she said. “You will be caught. The police will be notified, and you could be subject to criminal charges.”

She pointed to federal civil fines that start at more than $3,000 and can reach a maximum of more than $13,000.

The traveler caught Thursday was a Texas woman who had a .22-caliber handgun in her carry-on bag, said TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein. The gun was loaded with a round in the chamber.

Getting caught with a gun at the security checkpoint brings the entire checkpoint lane to a standstill, holding up everyone behind them and prompting Allegheny County Police to respond to the checkpoint.

In this instance, Farbstein said, police questioned the woman and confiscated the gun.

Authorities caught 21 guns at the checkpoint last year, lower than previous years because of a drop in travel amid the covid-19 pandemic. Farbstein noted that 83% were loaded.

Before that, the number of guns caught at security had been creeping slightly upward for years: 32 in 2017, 34 in 2018 and 35 in 2019, according to TSA data.

The drop in guns in 2020 was not commensurate with the drop in travelers, Farbstein said. Twice as many firearms per 1 million travelers were caught last year compared to 2019, she said.