Richmond International Airport sets annual record for guns stopped at checkpoint
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Transportation Security Administration officers at Richmond International Airport stopped a man with a loaded gun on the last day of 2020 to end the year with 22 guns stopped at the airport checkpoints – the highest number of guns caught in a single year at RIC airport despite record low passenger volume because of the pandemic.
TSA officers stopped a Midlothian man who had a 9-mm handgun loaded with four bullets Dec. 31 among the items in his carry-on bag as it went through the security checkpoint X-ray machine at the airport.
TSA alerted airport police, who responded to the checkpoint, confiscated the handgun and cited the man.
“When you consider that the passenger volume at Richmond was significantly lower in 2020 due to the pandemic, it is an extremely disappointing trend,” said TSA Federal Security Director for Richmond International Airport Chuck Burke. “The TSA team here at Richmond International is strong and they are good at their jobs and focused on the mission. With fewer travelers in 2020, the expectation was that fewer firearms would be brought to the airport. But that didn’t happen.
Officials stopped 14 guns each of the previous two years at RIC checkpoints, 18 in 2017, 10 in 2016 and just six in 2015.
“Not carrying a gun on a plane is nothing new,” Burke said. “TSA has been in existence for 19 years but for decades preceding TSA there has been a regulation barring guns on a plane. Yet this year we saw an exorbitant amount of travelers attempting to do just that. The consequences are costly. TSA imposes stiff federal financial penalties when a gun is detected at the checkpoint. It’s a fine that goes into the thousands of dollars.”
A typical first offense for carrying a loaded handgun into a checkpoint is $4,100 but may go as high as $13,669 depending upon circumstances.
Nationwide last year, 4,432 firearms were discovered in carry-on bags at checkpoints across the country, averaging about 12.1 firearms per day, approximately a 5% increase nationally in firearm discoveries from the total of 4,239 detected in 2018. Eighty-seven percent of firearms detected at checkpoints last year were loaded.
