http://aroundotown.blogspot.com/2009/04/whos-going-through-your-luggage-and.html

You can bet I won’t forget again, though.

Well, you’re right about that. The days of being able to shoot out your back door or on any rural back road are long gone in NW Montana. Now it’s the range or nothing. Unfortunately, I do have to fly a lot. The way the confessions of forgetfulness were going in the comments, I was half expecting someone to tell about the time that they forgot they had a grenade in their pocket, a rocket luncher in their shaving kit or something equally farfetched. Don’t forget to turn your pockets inside out, shake your hair out and check behind your ears. Apparently, ya just never know.

Er what does forgetting to take a mag out of laptop bag have to do with range safety?

Shooting is part of our life. Forgetting a mag is like forgetting a cell phone but we always know where the weapons are.

What it sounds like is that people like me shoot all the damned time. So much so that we have shooting paraphernalia on our about or vehicles, home, person that sometimes forgetting can cause some unwelcome attention when compared to decades prior.

When my Dad flew F-27s and DC-3s for West Coast Airlines the pilots had the option of being armed. When he retired from NWA that was no longer the case.

Cory

Same thing happened to me at Dulles in which I had some work done to my condo and put the .45, mags and a knife in my bag. I remembered to take out the gun but forget about one mag and the knife.

Same thing … “no big deal but we have to write you a ticket for the knife and keep it”….

$1,500 later in lawyer fees the TSA lady that was cool at the airport was an absolute demonic bitch in the courtroom saying that I was responsible for 9/11, the plague of the 1900s and the killing of numerous baby seals. 40 hours of community service later……

Yay!

I’m also a current pilot with a background clearance to fly within the 5 mile radius of DC’s ring of stupidity known as the ADIZ.

Those little blue shirt TSA NAZIs are the spawn of hell.

They even made the head of TSA that wrote the regulations take off his shoes at Reagen National. He stated, “I do not have to remove my shoes if the sole of the shoe is part of the shoe and not detachable (think Nike versus dress shoe).” TSA gimp replied, “Yes you do.”, He replied, “No I don’t and I wrote the regulation.”. Hillarity ensued from that point… hahaha hhahahaha. Government at its finest.

That was in 1985, when they were not insane, but they got a bit excited. But I was in BDUs IIRC so they just made me sign a roster and I had to mail the knife home. No cops involved, but I did feel like an idiot.

At first. Not after you gave him the cartridges.

Why did you have to mail the magazine, at that point?

Aren’t all events supposed to be (for the most part) independent from one another? Just because someone was convicted of burglary last year doesn’t mean the prosecutor can use that against them in a trial over a similar charge next year.

And what is the rational for the threshold of two instances? If I flew on commerical airlines twice a week (as I used to) and I forgot (and got caught with) a loaded magazine twice in three years is that the same severity of “violation” as someone that forgets (and gets caught) twice in two trips?

Why? How is it covered in the regulations?

What other parts? I can see a barrel being a no-no — on the grounds that someone else might sneak a single bullet and someone else a breach block.

Wooden grips? Okay, or (part of a gun) not?

Anyways, I went into a Federal building that happened to also be where you paid traffic tickets issued by State Troopers, and set off the metal detector. Of course, I didn’t even think of the picks until the little wand waved over the back of my belt. I said “Oh, yeah that’s this zipper,” and flipped the belt over to show the zipper, “it’s supposed to be for holding money or something, I guess.” He shrugged and waved me through. I almost went into that same building again a year later, but remembered on the way through the doors, and went back to my car to remove the tools. I also almost went to the airport with the same…

It’s amazing that something that’s a part of your daily routine, and so familiar to you that you don’t even think about it, can get you in trouble once you cross some arbitrary line.