From my personal perspective, the TSA did their job well
Posted By RichC on November 21, 2015
What a duffus! I don’t want to admit, but I made a MAJOR airport security mistake on Friday morning … and am thankfully a free man to tell the tale. KUDOS to the much maligned Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for doing their job and doing it well. Neglectful Rich left an extended round full 9mm magazine buried in an inner pocket of in his carry-on bag … 
OR as I refer to it, my “battle bag” … BOB … or just mini-briefcase. Brenda is probably more accurate and calls it my “man purse.”
I couldn’t believe how foolish I was to leave the ammunition and magazine slip my mind, although the TSA personnel at FLL in Fort Lauderdale were extremely polite and understanding (commenting that it happens more often than you would think). I of course wasn’t a complete idiot as at least I wasn’t carrying my Kahr PM9 (right) or even my normal Swiss Army Knife (whoops, questionable link) or Victorinox Leatherman like multifunction tool. Still, it was a heart stopping moment to watch the TSA agent dig into my bag and pull out something that was not suppose to be going through security or onto an airplane … and doing it just days after security was elevated (November 2015 Paris attacks).
The process went like this:
- I passed through the security line and the agent looking at the bag brought someone else over to look at it. They moved it to the security desk behind the scanners and had me walk over the the pat-down mat.
- I had already
put items back in my pocket put my belt and shoe back on, but was asked to remove all again. - The bag was completely disassembled and searched while I was patted down with several TSA agents around. All were friendly and polite.
- It was pretty clear they had seen this before and although they cataloged and took photos on their whiteboard with my name, etc on it, they followed the procedure in bring in their supervisor.
- After all the information was gathered, they made the call to the Deputy who ran a background check along with a couple of my IDs – Driver’s license, Ohio and Florida Concealed Carry License.
- Thankfully all involved were understanding although the only option (besides getting arrested) was to relinquish the magazine and rounds … which I did without hesitation.
- I was released to continue to my flight … which thankfully was still 30 minutes until boarding due to light traffic and a great UBER driver.
Let’s hope this is the first and last time I make this mistake … BUT I’ll never make a joke about TSA again. They were very impressive.
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