[mercy]

I have something to add to this that none of you are going to want to hear.

A few months ago I traveled from the 'central South' to LA. I took my large camera bag full of digital SLR gear. Camera, lenses, flash, batteries, etc.

I used a bag I don't normally use. It fits in the overhead. I had forgotten when last I used it. Evidently it had been while I was out in the country. Snake country.

I had left something in a side compartment that I did not know was there. Even though they looked through my camera bag by hand ... it remained undetected. I myself did not find it untill I got through baggage pickup at my destination airport and was in the hotel.

I was horrified and still to this day get weak in the knees when I think of what would have happened to me had it been found. I burried it in LA. At a cost to me of around four hundred dollars. I had no alternative. I have admitted this to no one. Especially not any family members.

I will say no more.

[eno_]

According tests run by the TSA, until the results got to be too embarrassing, UNHIDDEN guns and other weapons are found only 50% of the time.

In other words, your odds of getting home with your expensive item were a coin-toss.

Similarly, to hijack 5 planes armed with guns, terrorists would have to send 10 teams to do it.

We are sitting ducks. Fly as little as possible until Moslems get special treatment all the time, every flight, every Moslem.

[MattinNJ]

Wow.

Yet they practically anal probed my 3 yr old on the way to Disney. Un-Friggin-believable.

[hopespringseternal]

I burried it in LA. At a cost to me of around four hundred dollars.

That was stupid, all you had to do was put it in a checked bag.

[John O]

I myself did not find it untill I got through baggage pickup at my destination airport and was in the hotel.

I was horrified and still to this day get weak in the knees when I think of what would have happened to me had it been found. I burried it in LA. At a cost to me of around four hundred dollars. I had no alternative. I have admitted this to no one. Especially not any family members.

OMG!! You carried your Republican National Committee card with you on an airline flight! That is a huge risk to take.

[NittanyLion]

I was horrified and still to this day get weak in the knees when I think of what would have happened to me had it been found. I burried it in LA. At a cost to me of around four hundred dollars. I had no alternative. I have admitted this to no one. Especially not any family members.

Was it an ant farm?

Seriously, why did you bury "it"? You could've checked "it" for the flight home or FedEx'd it for $10.

[Don Joe]

Um, do you remember where you buried it?

If no one else finds it, you can go there and either carry it back with you legally (locked case, declared) on your next flight back. (A relative did the exact same thing here. Forgot it while he was visiting this state, and on his next trip, declared it when he flew back. No hassle.)

Or, you could take it to an FFL and pay him to ship it to a local FFL for you to pick up.

No need to go all wobbly over it!

[Petronski]

I burried it in LA. At a cost to me of around four hundred dollars. I had no alternative.

I bet you could have shipped 'it' back to yourself via UPS.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

I was horrified and still to this day get weak in the knees when I think of what would have happened to me had it been found.

"Clinton for President '92" button?

[mtbopfuyn]

I had left something in a side compartment that I did not know was there. Even though they looked through my camera bag by hand ... it remained undetected.

If you did it, there's countless others who have gotten stuff through. The terrorists know they can hit whenever they want and there's not a darned thing we will do to stop them.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

I have an Uncle who flew to Brazil a couple months after 9/11 and when he got there he realized that he had left one of those long razor knives in his carry on bag. I just went through security at two airports and I can't say that I had a real feeling of safety.

[SauronOfMordor]

I have something to add to this that none of you are going to want to hear.

Two months after 9/11, a co-worker of mine had an experience involving 5 rounds of .38 in a knitting bag

The airport rent-a-cops are a PC joke.

[freedomlover]

Obviously the impression you give is that you got a $400 pistol (a .38 revolver with ratshot?) through security.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on burying the gun in LA (Lord only knows the laws you were probably breaking just possessing the thing) but I would be just as worried about leaving the thing behind for some thug to use and implicate you, leaving open the chances for a midnight visit from your local LEO which is never a good thing.

Hopefully you did your best to tear the gun up best you could before leaving it behind.

I also don't blame you for not mailing it back or stuffing it in your checked bag. You now have to declare firearms in checked bag which adds to the pain of flying. For that reason I rarely fly any more.

But when I think if what I used to take through gate security before 9.11 (knives etc) it still amazes me.

BTW a pretty good snake gun is a over/under 410 pistol that shoots 410s or 45 Long Colts. Not something for fun shooting but it did me well one summer I did surveying work. Of course the best defense is two instinctive steps back to safety but I could never resist popping a rattlesnake.