Account of Flying with Firearms

Deviant Ollam & Daisy Belle I don't like relying on firearms as a way to skirt issues of bag weight, but we had so much damn gear going to ShakaCon that it sure helped.
ATL --> PHX --> HNL 2009-06-07	HNL --> PHX --> PHL 2009-06-15/16

Luggage & Gear
As described in the previous account, Daisy and i were traveling with a lot of stuff on this bounce... i had a training, a village, and Gringo Warrior to conduct at ShakaCon in addition to my basic talk. Due to a bunch of extra shirts that redpantz gave us and other items acquired at SummerCon, a couple of my cases were quite clearly over the weight limit.

Outbound Travel
When checking in at ATL we were assisted by Lynda and Fred. All things went smoothly enough... my only minor difficulty was self-created, really. While these two airport staffers joked a bit about being "scared" of all the firearms (meh, it's not my kind of humor but whatever... it wasn't a really hoplophobic response but done in that "oh lawzy" southern sort of way) they also noticed that two of the cases were quite clearly beyond the 50.0 lb mark. I pulled a fast excuse out of nowhere, indicating that without the padlocks (i removed one while one case was on the scale) the luggage would indeed weigh fifty pounds. The locks, i asserted, were required by federal law due to the presence of firearms and were thus (i explained, perhaps a bit inaccurately) were exempt from being factored in as part of a bag's total weight. That may not be 100% correct, but it immediately seemed to convince them.

The secondary area for bag screening was almost directly behind us as we stood at the airline counter. Just across the departure hall was a small counter that could have been mistaken for an info and assistance booth if you didn't see the blue uniforms back there. TSA officer Langley invited me back there with my whole baggage cart. There was an ergonomic "any height" table of the kind i first spotted in CID airport in Iowa. I was asked to unlock each case. Interestingly, officer Langley seemed far more interested in seeing my firearms than in inspecting my luggage itself. I took out each handgun, showed that it was unloaded, and re-stowed it prior to a brief TSA hand-scan of the other contents of the case. By the time we reached the third and fourth cases, officer Langley was barely going through them at all. Indeed... i do not feel as though this is entirely a bad thing. This is exactly how scanning should work (in my mind) as it became clearer and clearer that i was no threat and my bags were rather mundane (aside from all the cool picks and tools). If screeners were allowed by official policy to use behavioral and profile-style assessment, this would make total sense.

The whole time, i was asked to open and lock each case myself. Officer Langley also indicated that he really liked the Upton Sinclair quote i had showing on the inside lid of one case. You may have heard this line about fascism quoted elsewhere, like from Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul during an interview in late December. This made that particular TSA officer pretty kickass in my mind... something i don't often say.

All bags arrived on time and intact in Honolulu. I must say, the cacophony of noise and stunned reactions from the other arrived passengers (who were all, naturally, sporting lightweight vacation luggage) was something to behold in the baggage claim area. I am so pleased that i opted to capture that moment on video, hah!

Homebound Travel
Heading home from Honolulu was a breeze, as it often is... everyone who works there is just so damn happy all the time. The one hang-up was that we had arrived at the airport rather early. I didn't know if we were going to encounter any extra delays during our rental car return, etc. so we had planned only one activity that morning (visiting the USS Arizona memorial again) and allotted the rest of the evening for dinner and additional time at the airport.

We (and quite a few other people taking the two US Air evening flights back from HNL) had arrived at the departure hall while all staff were on a dinner break. Around 19:30 people returned and operations at the agricultural scanning station got underway. We passed that without difficulty and proceeded to baggage check-in. The US Air employee, a young Mr. Sato, was perhaps the nicest and most enjoyable individual i've ever encountered in an airport. He laughingly shared a story of lament over the fact that his wife dislikes firearms and made him sell off his gun collection upon their marriage. I shared his pain as well as a bit of a laugh with him as we blatantly looked the other way during baggage weighing. (It was clear as we lifted each item that they weren't unsafe but if an airline worker had wanted to hassle us there would have been the opportunity, i suspect.)

The staffed TSA bag drop area is actually where all passengers leave their luggage (the way it should be done everywhere) and i inquired if they'd like me to remain present in case anything caused an alert. The two young TSA officers present were a bit startled (clearly they don't encounter firearms that often) but both assented that yes, that was probably a good idea. I stood by, the bags cleared the x-ray and external swab tests with out any problem, and we were on our way.

Everything arrived in Philadelphia on time and without any signs of disturbance.

Final Details & Thoughts
This trip overall (both the travel down to SummerCon as well as out to ShakaCon and back home) has me convinced that people with firearms are much less likely to be hassled for overweight bags than most other travelers. I don't encourage people to skirt the limits like we were forced to this time around, but it is indeed something that we have discovered.

And oh yeah... Hawaii fucking rocks. I couldn't live there, but i sure don't mind being invited to visit each summer.

Air Travel Ratings
If you don't have the time or the desire to read the full text of someone's account of air travel, you can simply refer to the rating shown at the conclusion of each portion of that person's journey. The following criteria are used in assigning these ratings...

Four Stars	check-in - no hassle, no delay screening - in full view, lock and unlock yourself luggage - all on time and intact
Three Stars	check-in - some delay or mild hassle screening - somewhat obscured, locking and unlocking yourself or it's done directly in front of you luggage - all on time and intact
Two Stars	check-in - major delay or major hassle screening - in a room or area that you could not enter and could barely observe luggage - luggage opened non-destructively
One Star	check-in - flight missed or passenger delayed from flying, properly packed items denied as luggage screening - luggage unlocked and opened totally in another area fully removed from you luggage - destructive entry into luggage and/or tampering with firearms
Zero Stars	This is a special category for outright theft, loss, or damage of firearms during air travel
half-star results are possible... naturally, they involve partial or mitigated problems that somehow fall in-between the above categories