Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers at Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport prevented a man from bringing his gun past the security checkpoint on Thursday, March 20. The 9mm handgun was loaded with seven bullets.
TSA officials notified the police, who confiscated the weapon and removed the man a resident of Radford, Va., from the checkpoint for questioning. Police confiscated the gun and cited him on a criminal charge.
It was the second firearm that TSA officers have intercepted at the checkpoint so far this year.
“We have a procedure in place for properly packing a firearm for a flight, and bringing a gun to a checkpoint is certainly not the proper procedure,” said Robin “Chuck” Burke, TSA’s Federal Security Director for the airport. “Guns need to be unloaded, packed in a locked hard-sided case and taken to your airline check-in counter so that it is transported in the underbelly of the aircraft. This way nobody has access to it during the flight. The man now faces a federal civil financial penalty for bringing his gun to the checkpoint.”
The original announcement can be found here.