There’s a form for that
How to carry a gun onto a plane:
Wanna carry a gun onto an airplane? It’s easy — just get any government ID (the cards issued to part-time assistant harbor masters on Cape Cod will do) and then tell the TSA that you need a “flying while armed” form. Not only will they let you bring your gun onto the plane, they’ll helpfully bring you into the cockpit (with your gun) and tell who who the undercover Sky Marshals are.
Guy is being charged for impersonating a federal officer and for embarrassing the TSA. Ok, I made the latter charge up. But that’s probably more what it’s about.
December 10th, 2008 at 10:48 am
There is actually a legit problem to some degree. If the airline staff don’t know what to do, and you don’t know exactly what the form looks like, they could give you the wrong one to check in.
A friend of mine just started filling one out during her first times checking in a gun and only after she started to hand it back did she notice that the airline gave her the form to escort a prisoner on board while armed. She had to argue with the airline to check her gun instead of taking it on the plane, pointing out that she had no prisoner and at some point, someone might ask about that.
When I first checked a gun to fly, I was given the flying while armed form as well. I also just started filling it out and then realized it wasn’t right. I tore it up and had to wait on a manager to figure out what form I wanted. Not one agent knew that you could just check a gun in your bag.
Given that this guy went around claiming to be an employee of DHS and flashed an assistant harbor master badge, I tend to doubt that there was much of a mistake on his part. However, for someone checking guns for the first time, they need to be careful that the airport staff doesn’t mislead them into filling out the wrong documents and get them into hot water.