A man flew from Barbados to Miami International with a loaded .32 revolver in his carry on. They claim that he was arrested after TSA agents found a handgun in his belongings.
I don’t buy it. Since when does the TSA screen people who are getting off of a plane? One of two things happened here: Either he brought it to their attention himself, or he was caught because he had to exit and reenter security for some reason.
The article reads like the TSA is so much better at security than other agencies. This summer, it was announced that TSA agents missed 95% of weapons that were placed in luggage by inspectors. In 17 out of 18 tries by the undercover federal agents saw explosive materials, fake weapons, or drugs pass through TSA screening undetected.
The problem that I have here, all incompetence aside, is that TSA is wasting time and effort looking for drugs. Their main and only purpose is supposed to be safety. in fact, the only reason that SCOTUS even allowed this violation of the Fourth Amendment was that the TSA was for safety and not law enforcement purposes, but that is not the point of this post.
The 2021 failure rate is not anything new. In 2017, they missed 70% of weapons. In 2015, they failed 95% of the time. Congress has been briefed that the TSA is a colossal waste of money.
I can believe it. I have had two incidents where I accidentally flew with weapons.
- I once flew from Fairbanks to Los Angeles with a large container of bear mace in my carry on bag.
- I once flew from Orlando to Nashville, including a layover in Atlanta, with a Glock 9mm in my carry on. I had simply forgotten that it was in my bag. I went to the airport, passed through security, and boarded the plane. When I put my bag in the overhead compartment, I heard a loud thump. I wondered what I had in there that was so heavy, and it dawned on me in an instant. I flew the entire way to Atlanta in a cold sweat. I was worried that I would have to pass through security again to change gates at my layover. It turns out that I didn’t. Once I was on the second flight, I realized that most security is theater. The TSA is staffed with a bunch of minimum wage high school dropouts. The only reason that 911 hasn’t happened again is that no one has tried.
The TSA catches 4,500 or so firearms at checkpoints per year. Assuming that they catch as many as 30% of them, as they did in the best year they ever had, this means that 15,000 or more firearms per year wind up on America’s aircraft. If they only catch 5%, as they did in the most recent test, as many as 90,000 firearms per year wind up flying the friendly skies.
The TSA costs us taxpayers $8.24 billion per year. That is over $1.8 million for each detected firearm, while they miss 95% of the firearms in passenger luggage. Who knows how much extra the TSA agents steal on top of that? The TSA has fired nearly 400 employees for stealing from travelers’ luggage.
The Miami Airport is #1 in TSA agent thefts, which ranks twelfth in passengers, with 29 employees terminated for theft from 2002 through December 2011.
This is one of the marks of third world shithole countries: the police are often on the take. If they are willing to steal, how willing are they to take bribes? Officers in Palm Beach, New Haven, Newark, and Westchester have all been caught accepting bribes from people for circumventing security. In fact, 20,000 of the TSA’s 55,000 agents have had complaints of misconduct against them, but 95% of the time, no discipline is administered.
The TSA, like most of the government, is a jobs program that is nothing more than a waste of taxpayer money that doesn’t accomplish the mission that it has been assigned.
Disclaimer: The stories above are for illustrative and artistic purposes only. They may or may not have happened. The posts on this site should not be construed as a confession or admission of guilt. So if any Federal, State, or Local law enforcement are reading this page, you should keep in mind that I probably never did any of the things I claim to have done. So there.
10 Comments
Plague Monk · December 7, 2021 at 7:17 am
When the TSA came out, soon after 9-11, several of my co-workers on an engineering design contract decided to switch from being CAD designers and enter the TSA program as inspectors. These people were making roughly 70-80 thousand a year on the contract, but they told me that the TSA bennies and job security compensated for the slightly lower pay of an inspector. I was told that I was a fool for turning down the opportunity to join them. I have no regrets on that, though. I just wish that I could have waited until I was 70 to retire(Vaccine mandate for all engineering contractors).
Don Curton · December 7, 2021 at 8:11 am
I remember getting stopped by the TSA. I had my toiletries in a gallon sized ziplock back instead of a quart size. For some reason this wasn’t allowed. They threatened to confiscate a somewhat expensive bottle of cologne too, saying it was bigger than allowed. I managed to step out of line with my stuff, go to a nearby kiosk, and the attendant there kindly pulled out a large box of quart sized ziplock bags and handed my one for a quarter. She said she was good and tired of seeing TSA bully every passenger and also that she knew they stole pretty much everything they confiscated. Complete joke and waste of time and money.
Jonathan · December 7, 2021 at 10:05 am
It took them a decade after banning full water bottles to be able to reliably detect them.
You have the option to take offending items back out of security, though I suspect some agents won’t admit it because they don’t want to bother.
Dirk Diggler · December 7, 2021 at 12:43 pm
I was wearing an authentic arrowhead edged with gold on a piece of paracord and went through the stand up body scanner. The next thing I know, I’m surrounded by tsa and a couple of cops with hands on their guns. They were ready to protect and serve the crap out of me. One tsa dork approached me from behind while they were telling me to keep my arms straight out. He reached around my neck and pulled the arrowhead out and asked me what it was FOR. I said “it’s a 10,000 year old arrowhead. This is the part where you say ‘that’s cool”. I got more searching. LOTS more. I quit flying. F them.
Big Ruckus D · December 7, 2021 at 3:39 pm
I don’t fly, and apparently never will. Mostly because the business model for commercial air travel is hopelessly broken and thereby unworthy of my consideration or my money. They nickel and dime people almost as bad as the cable company or a hospital does.
Then we have Tits, Scrotum and Ass (where TSA affrimaive action turds usually have their focus when not conspiring to steal valuable items from passengers), which is a large part of my complete hatred of the airlines. Their more recent revelation as hardcore vaxx sshotzis is yet another reason for me to give them the big fuck off.
Further, with “TSA”, the airlines got to offload all responsibility and liability for their own (ineffectual) security – though trusting the fedgov to do it for you without screwing it up is the height of foolishness – and the govt got to hire more overpaid goons, and make life more miserable for the rest of us. A real trifecta of suck.
It's just Boris · December 7, 2021 at 8:22 pm
Security theater, with bad actors.
EN2 SS · December 7, 2021 at 11:52 pm
The ONLY purposes of the tsa, are to train people to obey and tolerate abuse, like sheep, for example.
TCK · December 8, 2021 at 2:29 am
EN2 hit the bullseye on this, mostly.
He did, however, leave out the fact that the TSA also exists to train subhuman gestapo filth while simultaneously funneling massive kickbacks to the subhuman tyrant filth giving them their orders.
Elrod · December 8, 2021 at 8:11 am
Theoretically, the death rate for “traveling by automobile” is at least a couple orders of magnitude greater than “traveling by commercial aircraft.”
So, how many more people are now dead (or injured) because government imposed Security Theater by Incompetents on a civilized society and some members of that civilized society chose to not accept the Security Theater Bullshit for various and myriad reasons? And, to what degree is the airline industry complicit and responsible?
William Ashbless · December 10, 2021 at 7:55 am
Two things to share: the wife and I were flying to Montana with our small dogs. TSA waived us around the body scanner and took a swab of both dogs front paws. They put the swabs(actually some kind of strip) into a machine of sorts and, 15 seconds later we were cleared and allowed into the terminal. Only after did I realize that my Swiss Army. knife, on my key ring was still in my trousers pocket.
I could have had anything on me.
My brother and I make knives as a hobby when he comes to visit from California. It’s very common for him to transport materials and finished products in his checked bag when he travels. He has a stack of 14 TSA notifications that his bag has been searched manually. Only ONCE did he not get the notice. He contacted TSA about why he seems to be getting flagged for these ‘random checks’ and has heard nothing back. The only other pertinent info is, he’s a retired cop, but doesn’t travel with his personal firearm-ever.
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