Record number of guns found at Myrtle Beach airport last year. How to properly travel with one
Myrtle Beach International Airport set a record in 2021 for the number of guns confiscated by security officers, mirroring a trend happening across the country.
Airports saw more and more passengers bringing guns through security, whether accidentally or on purpose. By the end of the year, the Transportation Security Administration had found nearly 6,000 guns in passengers’ carry-on luggage in airports across the nation. Thirteen of them were in Myrtle Beach.
Bringing a gun through security can be a costly mistake — the TSA can issue fines exceeding $10,000 and could refer the person involved to local law enforcement for a ticket or even arrest. And, until the situation is resolved, that lane of TSA shuts down in an airport, slowing down the process for dozens to hundreds of other travelers.
“Whenever a firearm is brought to the security checkpoint, the first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to contact our law enforcement partners. The reason we do that is about 80 to 90% of the guns that come to the checkpoint are loaded,” TSA spokesman Mark Howell said. “So for everybody’s safety, we don’t want that that gun to go off — and it’s happened. We don’t want somebody to get hurt. We let them come in, take the firearm, remove the passenger and the firearm from the checkpoint.”
So far this year, MYR’s TSA officers have found seven firearms, roughly half the total number confiscated all of last year.
“It’s slowing down a little bit this year” in Myrtle Beach, Howell said. “But the trend nationwide is a little bit up.”
For some, traveling without a gun might not be possible, such as people going on hunting trips, for one. On Tuesday, Howell visited the Myrtle Beach airport to discuss how to properly travel with a firearm. Here is the step-by-step process to safely do so.
- Pack the gun in a hard-sided case. Make sure it’s unloaded. Lock the case.
- When you get to the airport, head straight to your airline check-in stand. Inform them you need to check a firearm in your luggage.
- After inspecting the case to make sure the gun is properly packed, airport staff will give you a card that confirms that it is unloaded.
- Seal that card in the case and re-lock it.
- Put the case in your luggage and hand it off to be checked.
There is one final step after the baggage is handed off: Wait a few minutes before going through security.
“If there is a reason that we have to call you to to rescreen it, we are never going to open this firearm. It’s up to the passenger and only the passenger to open to make the correction,” Howell said. Afterward, “if it’s going to fly, then we’ll send it on.”
The process and rules might seem tedious, Howell said, but they help ensure the safety of everyone on the flight and spare all the passengers, including the person who needs to travel with a gun, a lot of headache.
“(It is) a very costly mistake — forgetting to bring your gun to the ticket counter as opposed to bringing it to the security checkpoint,” Howell said.
This story was originally published September 14, 2022 at 9:43 AM with the headline "Record number of guns found at Myrtle Beach airport last year. How to properly travel with one."
