MILLER: Flying with a gun

The Washington Times ^ | 19 August, 2012 | Emily Miller

[marktwain]

But if you are transporting a firearm, isn’t it likely that there is going to be some traces of explosive residue/gunpowder on the gun case? So what would be the point?

Either they know that and discount it, or their tests exclude residue from gunpowder and primers.

I transported a high capacity reloader that had lots of dust from the depriming of hundreds of cartridges, they did a wipe test, and waved me through.

[Brooklyn Attitude]

“What is a wipe test?”

It is a test for explosives residue by wiping a sample pad on your bag or clothing.

[coloradan]

If you can legally possess the gun where you are going, and where you started from, you can legally transport it in checked luggage.

Just be sure you don't make a unscheduled weather-related landing in NYC or New Jersey, where you will then not only have your gun seized by police but also have felony firearms charges filed against you, making you a prohibited person for the rest of your life. As has happened to a few people.

[TXnMA]

I know I typed this earlier, and I thought it posted. Oh, well...

~~~~~~~~~

Now that I'm retired, I avoid flying like the plague. But, when I traveled for business (to locations with reciprocal CCW licensing) I always flew with three handguns.

I found that check-in goes very smoothly if you save the orange "'Unloaded' Declaration" card from a previous flight, hand it to the check-in agent, and say, "I'll be needing another of these to fill out".

I use a lockable Samsonite brief case with several "gun rugs" of various sizes inside. Mot of my pieces have readily-separable slides, and I place each slide in its own "rug". That allows those who are interested to see that the pieces are not only unloaded, but disassembled and non-functional.

I only experienced one minor perturbation: one cute little libbimbo at Logan literally jumped back when I opened the case so she could check that the pieces were unloaded. She said, "I've never even seen one of those things for real before! I'll take your word for it that they're unloaded..." She refused to touch them, but her supervisor was passing by, so I asked him to do the verification...

The main thing is simply to let the agents know it's just routine, and you do it all the time...

[TXnMA]

My guess is that, further down the luggage line, there is an “explosives sniffer” or another wipe test. Since your gun case is likely to test positive, doing a pre-screen allows them to avoid a lot of excitement at the explosives checkpoint.

[SuperLuminal]

"What is a wipe test? "

Not sure...However, at an east coast airport a few months ago I overheard the Sturmabteilung say something to an old man like: "Drop trow & skin it back"