As Reported by Jessica Wehrman for Roll Call
Republicans and Democrats demonstrated a fundamental disagreement Tuesday on how best to address skyrocketing numbers of weapons being confiscated at airport security checkpoints, with Republicans arguing for more education and Democrats more inclined to embrace higher penalties for offenders.
While both parties agreed that the nearly 6,000 guns confiscated at airport security by Transportation Security Administration officers in 2021 was a problem, Republicans on the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security argued that most offenders were inadvertent offenders — people who had simply forgotten that they had a gun in their bag.
The TSA confiscated 5,972 guns at airport security checkpoints in 2021, breaking the previous confiscation record set in 2019 by roughly 1,500 weapons.
Of the weapons confiscated in 2021, roughly 86 percent were loaded, according to Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO.
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