I note that every single one of them caught by running your bag under the x-ray and/or a metal detector. The TSA provides no evidence that grabbing your nutsack or fondling your wife's breasts has found any weapon or threat that a simple bag x-ray and a walk through metal detector wouldn't find.
The headline is a bit odd. The TSA blog gives clear and simple instructions on how to take your weapons onto a plane. (Not loaded, not in your hand luggage.)<p>Some people have said (on HN as well as other places) that the TSA have never stopped weapons getting on board a plane and if they had they would have heavily publicised it. In fact, they stop about 20 to 30 guns each week from getting on board a plane. Those guns and knives are posted to their blog.<p>Perhaps posting images on Instagram will let more people know that the TSA manage to stop some weapons (although I don't care about the guns they stop, I care about the gun they don't stop and which is then used to harm someone) and to help remind people to put guns into checked baggage instead?<p>(<a href="http://blog.tsa.gov/search/label/Week%20In%20Review" rel="nofollow">http://blog.tsa.gov/search/label/Week%20In%20Review</a>)<p>Note that I'm not defending particularly defending TSA here.
This smells like a desperate attempt by the TSA to justify their own existence.<p>Note that none of these confiscated weapons by themselves necessarily constitute an intent to use them. Knives especially are commonly carried and can easily be forgotten about.
Those sepia toned filters might actually make me rethink my opinion of the TSA. They should get plaid flannel uniforms and change their motto to "We were groping old ladies before it was cool"
This feels kinda wrong, but I have to keep in mind that these people chose to give up these items.<p>From the TSA Blog (I cannot confirm if true)<p>When prohibited items come through the checkpoint, passengers are given options:<p>1) Take the item to the ticket counter and check it in your baggage or a box provided by the airport.<p>2) Many airports have a US Postal Service or other shipping services area where boxes, stamps and envelopes can be bought so you can ship your items home.<p>3) If there is somebody seeing you off, you can hand the prohibited item to them.<p>4) If your car is parked outside, you can take the item to your car.
I wonder how many TSA empoyees it takes to run an Instagram account.<p>All kidding aside, I wonder what mega IT company won the bid to run the Instagram account.
While it is kind of a sad PR stunt from someone with a 14 year old hipster child at home, it is kind of cool if you look for the ways people try to smuggle goods and weapons onto flights.
It is worth pointing out, a trick a number of photographer friends use when having to check their photo gear is to include a flare gun (or was it a starter pistol) in the case and note that there is a firearm. It increases the scrutiny and tracking of the bag.<p>Lifehacker had an article on it --<p><a href="http://lifehacker.com/5448014/pack-a-gun-to-protect-valuables-from-airline-theft-or-loss" rel="nofollow">http://lifehacker.com/5448014/pack-a-gun-to-protect-valuable...</a>
So our tax dollars are not only paying the TSA's jack-booted thugs to harass us at the airport, but they're also paying for TSA dorks to sit around and post on Instagram? Jeeeeebusssssss....<p>And people wonder why I'm such a government-hating Libertarian. <i>sigh</i>
One of the pictures has a clear visual date stamp with a "/90." Maybe this means nothing.<p>But I wonder if they are misleadingly posting these as if they were just discovered, rather than over what appears to be at least 23 years.