[WayneS]

Look closely at it (which would take a a SANE person about 15 seconds prior to realizing it is not a gun, not a ‘replica’ and not a threat)? Yes. Okay.

Accuse her of committing a federal crime, detain her until she misses her flight and defend your actions by claiming the purse is a ‘replica weapon’? No.

Like I said, those people are f—ked in the head.

[rawhide]

Imagine what would happen with a well-endowed woman wearing a t-shirt with a gun screen-printed across the chest area?

[DaveyB]

Sure, it was not a functional weapon, but she looks smart - kinda like MacGyver. And he could turn it into a functional device to take over the plane and force the stewards to act straight, or at least less queer, and the stewardess to give out more drinks and peanuts like in the old days. She looks like the type who could take over the cockpit with just a sheet of paper, (don't laugh we all know how painful a paper-cut can be.) Just the image of a gun is enough to make some liberal wet themselves, and who knows if this girl was really a girl and not a terrorist covered in an elaborate full body suit and the gun on her purse a part for a more nefarious device to trigger an EMP pulse high in the atmosphere so that kids could no longer get their iTunes and disable the IRS datat center - the key to the device being cleverly camouflaged as a gun to throw off federal agents, who would of course ignore the purse because it is not a "real" gun. . I bet you didn't think about that did you!

Or it could be that the TSA is dumb as rocks, (no offense to rocks intended).

[LachlanMinnesota]

The point was not that it looked like a gun, IMHO. It was because someone that uses a gun design on a purse is probably conservative, more likely to be someone who values their freedoms, and so they were harassed for their political beliefs. No one in their right mind would think this is dangerous, so it leaves the whole situation open to discovering the ulterior motives of the TSA personnel.

If she had an Obama sticker on, she would not even have been searched.

[longtermmemmory]

next the TSA will target anyone carrying a cowboy wallet.