You’ve Got Your Handgun in My Peanut Butter!

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration announced today that, in 2022, it detected a record 6,542 firearms in carry-on bags or on passengers at checkpoints. That’s a sizeable jump from the 5,972 detected in 2021 and a spike compared with the 4,432 detected in 2019. Of the guns caught in 2022, approximately 88 percent were loaded. Firearms were caught at 262 airport checkpoints nationwide.

The Wall Street Journal’s write-up includes these eye-opening anecdotes:

At security checkpoints this year, the agency has found firearms in some peculiar vessels. In September, TSA found a gun stuffed into a whole uncooked chicken at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida. At John F. Kennedy International Airport in December, officers found a disassembled semiautomatic handgun in two jars of peanut butter.

Don’t ever change, Florida Man. Forget the gun for a moment; who boards a plane with a bag full of uncooked chicken?

Separately, you can almost hear the excuse of that traveler at JFK: Officer, the gun is disassembled and securely packed in not one but two separate jars of peanut butter. Surely, you can see this firearm is no threat to anyone beyond bread and jelly.