LEX18.com:
Officials at Blue Grass Airport say they are dealing with higher numbers of weapons found in luggage. TSA officials came to talk to talk about the right ways to travel the US skies.
As a nation last year a record 200,030 guns were discovered at checkpoints. Nine of those were found at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington.
A TSA spokesman says that people travelling with a firearm need to put it in a hard case unloaded. Any ammo needs to be in its own container inside that hard case.
The case must be locked and left at the ticket counter. Never bring it through TSA checkpoint.
If you are planning on flying with a weapon and you have questions you can ask a ticket counter agent or TSA agent in the airport.
This sounds like good advice, and after reading the TSA rules for flying with guns and ammunition, I too thought that they wanted ammunition in the same locked box with the firearm.
My wife and I took a recent trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and boarded the aircraft in Charlotte and Jackson with a firearm and ammunition. The firearm needs to be in a locked case such as a Nanovault (which worked well for my purposes). I have read other web sites that recommended against use of a TSA approved lock on the basis that anyone could get into it and that’s what they want to protect against.
That’s bad advice, don’t follow it. Nanovaults have TSA locks. Your local gun shop can also sell you TSA approved locks (as well as other hard cases). You announce at luggage check-in that you want to check a firearm, and the airline employee will ask you to certify by signature that the firearm is unloaded. More than likely, they won’t even ask to look at or examine the gun. You sign, you re-lock your box, and you’re on your way.
Except I had ammunition in the Nanovault and American Airlines requested that I remove it and place it in the luggage away from the firearm. You see, even now, flying with firearms isn’t as straight forward as you might think, and airline employees apparently have a different understanding of the rules than do I.
