The Transportation Security Administration has announced that in 2016 they seized a record number of guns at airport security checkpoints. They found 3,391 guns across 240 airports, which was a 28 percent jump from the previous year when they recovered 2,650.
Of the guns that they found, they said that 87 percent of them were loaded. But part of the jump can be attributed to the fact that TSA screened 43 million more people in 2016 than in 2015.
The airport with the highest amount of gun finds was Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, followed by 192 at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport had 128, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport had 101, and Denver International Airport had 98.
They also noted that generally when this happens it is unintentional since people grab a jacket or bag that they haven’t used in awhile and forgot that the gun was in there.