My funny Holiday story, thought I would share

[MrsFS]

A funny (not so funny at the time) holiday story for you ladies. Just thought I would share.
Two years ago I was planning to meet my husband down in S. America for a two week vacation over Christmas and New Year's. (Long story about why weren't flying together).

So first off, my alarm didn't go off and I wake up late. I barely had time to shower. I threw my luggage in the car and zipped down to LAX. It's nearing the holidays, so off course there are huge lines at security. I threw my backpack, or should I say my husband's fishing backpack I borrowed) up on to the conveyor belt to go through the x-ray machine. I passed through the metal detectors no problem. When I reach the other side to collect my backpack, the TSA man motions me over to the side. I kinda chuckle and say "it's an electric toothbrush". He wordlessly pulls out one of my husband's 40 cal clips with 6 rounds in it. The smile instantly leaves me face as well as the color from my cheeks. I said, "I swear I didn't know that was in there". The TSA guy stayed eerily calm. I thought they would start freaking out.

They escorted me to a plastic chair nearby and told me to wait there. At this point, I was kinda surprised that they didn't take me to some scary back room in the airport. Moments later a cop arrived and TSA handed him the clip. He looked at the clip, looked at me, looked back at the clip and then at me again. He kept an absolute straight face until the third time he looked at me. Then he cracked a smile and chuckled. Then he asked where the gun was that the clip went with, to which I replied," at home". At one point, I told him I didn't even know what kind of gun it went to, yeah right. He laughed and said, "a very nice one" The cop actually turned out to be pretty nice about the whole thing. He asked me if he could use it as a training exercise for one of the newbies. I didn't want to say no considering he didn't bust my chops that bad.

When the newbie showed up with one of the other veteran officers they ran through the drill. The other veteran officer was a total jerk and went off on me about packing your own bag and yada yada. Then TSA and the cops argued about who was going to take possession of the clip. I didn't really care as long as I got to go. All in all it wasn't that bad of an experience. Luckily that happened just before the underwear bomber incident.
When I finally got to my destination to meet up with my hubby and I told him the story, he thought it was hilarious. Before he asked me if I was okay, he said, "I thought I was missing a clip, was it a plastic or metal clip?" When I said it was plastic he said, "ok good. That one was only worth ten bucks" I told him I didn't care how much it was worth because I almost went to jail and missed our vacation. I told him he also owed me some new underwear because I was pretty much s*** my pants and that he needed to keep better track of his things. Note to self, buy my own backpack.

[Donn32]

About 15 years ago I flew home from the shot show and had the experience. Except it was my magazine and the gun was in my checked in luggage. I can now laugh about it. But yes, get your own backpack! Hope you had a great trip!!!

[Shellshocker66]

This so reminds me of my own story way back when I was a youngster. Thankfully it was pre 9/11/TSA.

So I'm a teenager who goes shooting a lot with my .22 rifle, my mother decides to go watch me one day. I hand her my ammo to hand to me as I load my mags, so when I'm done and packing up my gun she hands me back the full boxes.

So couple weeks go by and my uncle is flying in from Arkansas, so off we go to Sacramento Metro to pick him up. This is back in the day when you could meet your family at the gate, but you still had to go through security. So I go through, no problem, next my mother come on into the area and places her purses on the belt and goes through. Now it gets very interesting!

Out of nowhere appears a couple of Sacramento sheriffs, and they tell my mother they need to search her purse. Now my mother has always been very private about her purse and won't let anyone touch it (let me repeat this, touch purse get hands cut off). So she starts throwing a fit and telling them they have no right to touch her purse and keeps a very strong grip on its handle (little background, mom had me when she was older so she is in late 50's at this point). Deputies keep telling her she has to let go and let them search, she tells them to "pound sand" and no one is touching her purse. More officers arrive and I am so embarrassed! This goes on for about 15 minutes and with 6 deputies or more and they don't get into my moms purse, and let her pass on and go to the gate because they don't want to man handle a little old lady and she is probably the meanest old lady they have ever encountered!

So she is fuming, my uncle arrives and we get to the car. She is frantically going through her purse trying to see if anything spilled out or she lost anything during this whole struggle. Suddenly she starts pulling out handfuls of .22lr ammo. I ask "mom what the hell is that doing in your purse" and she says I kept handing you a box when you asked for it and putting the loose ones in my purse to keep from losing them!

So even though they had to have seen ammo on the screen during the x-ray of her purse they still gave up and let her pass. I feel really lucky they didn't decide to throw her in jail that day!

[Steyrlp10]

What is it with airports? The last time I flew with my guns was eons ago for the Nationals and heard about the horror stories from my friends trying to get to Camp Perry. Everyone now tries to drive, but with gas prices the way they are, that also sucks.

OP, glad you made it to SA -- did your husband ever tell you which firearm the magazine went with?

In my case, I was running to catch a flight and didn't realize that my husband (now ex) had tossed a tin of pellets in the diaper bag I was toting. Security was nowhere like it is now, but the metal can still showed up, so they pulled me aside too.

This was at SFO and very similar in the large amount of people around trying to board the flight. I'm trying not to freak because I have my kids (and kids aren't patient or quiet when you're trying to concentrate!), so they haul some poor SFPD guy from another terminal.

When he arrived and saw what the hulabaloo was, he basically yelled at the screeners that there aren't even any primers in my pellets. He was a really nice guy; I apologized to him for having him pulled away from whatever he was doing at the other building (most likely having lunch) and further explained to him that I was trying to fly back East for the Nationals.

He also saw the number of kids I had with me and understood that there were numerous distractions. Phew!

[MrsFS]

I actually knew which gun the mag went with, I was just playing dumb.

[VegasND]

I'll play. This should demonstrate one way times have changed.

1968: My mom and I are visiting relatives in Arkansas. My mom gets this crazy idea to take a bus from Little Rock to Chicago rather than fly. She explains that we can see more of the country that way. (To this day I hate busses) Her brother-in-law, my uncle, gives her a .38 derringer to take with her for protection and she puts it in her purse.

Little Rock is pretty much shut down with the streets patrolled by Guard and cops are everywhere. As we're walking to the Greyhound she opens her purse and drops it. All her junk falls out and the derringer slides along the sidewalk until it comes to rest between the feet of a cop ( I was 13 and don't remember which kind). He looks down, looks up and turns to face the other way as my mother puts everything back in her purse.

We flew to LAX from Chicago. The derringer was in checked luggage.

[Steyrlp10]

I'll play. This should demonstrate one way times have changed.

1968: My mom and I are visiting relatives in Arkansas. My mom gets this crazy idea to take a bus from Little Rock to Chicago rather than fly. She explains that we can see more of the country that way. (To this day I hate busses) Her brother-in-law, my uncle, gives her a .38 derringer to take with her for protection and she puts it in her purse.

Little Rock is pretty much shut down with the streets patrolled by Guard and cops are everywhere. As we're walking to the Greyhound she opens her purse and drops it. All her junk falls out and the derringer slides along the sidewalk until it comes to rest between the feet of a cop ( I was 13 and don't remember which kind). He looks down, looks up and turns to face the other way as my mother puts everything back in her purse.

We flew to LAX from Chicago. The derringer was in checked luggage.

What would we do without our moms???

[laika]

It's automatic for me to have a swiss army knife in my back pocket and one in my purse.

When I've flown to Denver, I remembered to remove the purse knife but as I say, the one in my back pocket is automatic.

They've scanned my bags, scanned me, etc. but 3 times I went through the airport with my army knife intact.

Of course, in my hometown I got caught with my army knife going in to testify at a student's custody hearing last year and was also told my coffee cup (stainless) needed to be returned to my vehicle. Guess they're more careful. Who knows, I might have beaned the judge with the cup or cut his nails with the knife.