Airport News
Raleigh-Durham International Airport security officers have found 16 guns at checkpoints so far in 2013, already passing the number of guns seized in each of the past two years.
Most of the time, the guns are given up without a problem. While the traveler faces a fine of up to $7,500 from the Transportation Security Administration.
The increase in gun seizures are part of a nationwide trend. In the first six months of 2013, the TSA has found 894 guns at airports, most of them loaded. It is a 30 percent increase over the first six months of 2012. Security at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport confiscated 11 guns in both 2011 and 2012, compared to the 16 guns seized in the first seven months of this year.
In North Carolina, violators can be charged with illegally carrying a concealed weapon, a misdemeanor punishable by 30 days of community service. But Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby said he has no problem with dropping charges if the gun was brought into the airport inadvertently
What worries him more is how careless people have gotten with their guns.
"We've become such an armed society that people actually aren't thinking about the fact that they're carrying weapons with them," Willoughby said. "That's a little bit sobering, to think that we are so accustomed to carrying a firearm with us that we often don't think about it or realize that we have it."
Ed Nicely of Whispering Pines said he felt terrible when he went to the airport with a .22 caliber over-and-under derringer in his carry-on bag. The 55-year-old gun dealer said he got the weapon at a Charlotte gun show and put it in the bag, then forgot all about it until two months later when he packed that bag in the dark for a gun show in Las Vegas in January. The TSA screener found the gun at the airport.
"Me being a gun dealer, I know the laws," Nicely said. "I just didn't see it in my bag. I was so amazed it was there. It was a total accident. It was stupid, yes."
The misdemeanor charge against Nicely was dropped. He was fined by the TSA, but didn't want to say how much. A judge decides if the guns are returned, and in Nicely's case, he didn't get the weapon back.
"Everybody should know not to go on a plane with a gun," said Steele Myers, interim police chief at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. "Some people are forgetful, or they're thinking that a concealed handgun permit gives them authority to do things they can't."
