“What about the gun in your bag?” she was asked by a customs officer.
Goodson replied: “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.”
A review of Goodson’s phone revealed she had searched online “can I have a gun in my suitcase?” and set a calendar entry with a note reminding her to “put gun in suitcase”.
You can quite legally transport a firearm in your checked baggage, because it's not accessible to you during the flight.
But yes, the TSA is a joke, and red teams have roughly a 90% success rate at getting firearms and simulated bombs through "secure" checkpoints. It's security theater; it catches people that aren't really trying very hard--or truly forgot that they weren't supposed to carry a firearm in their carry-on bag--and it makes the majority of people think that flying is completely safe. Not very long after 11 September, I was flying to New York City with a friend that accidentally had a rather large switchblade in her carry-on, at a time when switchblades were illegal throughout the US. Not only did she carry it to NYC, she was able to get it back to Chicago, all without the TSA noticing.
Not only did she carry it to NYC, she was able to get it back to Chicago, all without the TSA noticing.
🤣 TSA cinema. Incredible. A friend bought a bottle of alcohol in the airport in Europe where it was sealed by the cashier and had a label on it. She stuffed it into her carry-on. When she landed in NYC for a transfer to South America and had to go through security again (because the there's no transfer hall in that international airport for some reason), TSA ripped open the seal to scan the bottle which failed, thus forcing my friend to check in her carry-on luggage and go through security again. A glorious waste of time.
Not only did I not expect the US to have an international airport that doesn't have a transfer hall, I was told the airport looked like it was built in 70s and hadn't seen any major upgrades since. The image of wealth and prosperity in the US portrayed abroad really feels like a sham.
Goodson told police she was actually “scared” of shooting the gun and hoped simply producing it would be enough to deter potential threats. “If that didn’t do it I would probably just pistol whip,” Goodson was quoted as having said.