The plastic Royal Signaller was bought by tourist Julie Lloyd as a present to take home to her husband Ken, a recently retired policeman in Toronto, Canada.
Mrs Lloyd, 59, who regularly visits Britain to see her mother, said: ‘I took it to the airport still in its wrapping, but they discovered the little gun when it was scanned.
‘It is only about three inches long and there are no moving parts. There isn’t even a trigger.
‘But they wouldn’t let me take it with me. I had it in my hand luggage. I just didn’t think it would cause a problem. They said rules were rules. There was no flexibility or common sense.’
As I have said before, zero tolerance equals zero common sense. We have the same idiots running some of our schools...here and here...
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
H/T Memeorandum
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Those that rode the short bus to school need to have jobs too!
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of an incident I personally experienced when I was 11 or 12 at what was back then Bear field int'l. Me, being young and stupid and about 30 years before 9/11 but only a few years after the rash of late 60's / early 70's "skyjackings", went into the airport wearing a de-primed and de powdered .50 cal machine gun bullet on a necklace. Mind you the cartridge had 3 holes drilled equally spaced around the base clearly indicating there was no threat and before passing through the metal detector placed it in the tupperware bowl security provided. When I came back through to claim my propertyone of the security people, a young guy, tried to confiscate it and when I complained told me I was going to be arrested. The older guy sitting next to him put the smack down on the jack ass and handed me back my .50 cal on a chain and proceeded to reprimand the jerk in front of me. Coolest thing I ever witnessed up to that time, I walked away wanting to grow up and land a career as they guy giving the reprimand. Years later I got high in high school (isn't that why they call it "high" school) and took metal shop and life went down hill from there.
Lesson being: do as I say, not as I do, or you might just wind up being a lowly mechanical engineer.
ReplyDeleteI had scored some new, unfired, unprimed brass on a business trip and was bringing it back in my carry on, mostly to keep the weight down in my checked luggage, which had some bullets for reloading among other things.
ReplyDeleteSo, little pieces of brass...no primers...no powder...no bullets...they didn't want me to take them on the place because they were "ammunition components".
I guess if my fellow conspirators could have smuggled the primers ( a small explosive), gunpowder ( a large explosive), bullets, a progressive reloading press and a firearm, my brass might have caused some real damage. About as much as a sock full of marbles...and as far as I know, socks and marbles are still permitted in your carry on!
Isn't it weird that now TSA / DHS says no, but you can still get it there overnight by 8 a.m. if you really want to, and often it will travel in vacant space on a United or Delta flight?
ReplyDeleteOh, yeah. I feel safer!
ReplyDeleteThe guy who was going to "confiscate" it was probably just going to pocket it.
ReplyDelete