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Is Society Breaking Apart Under the Shutdown?
What with Democrats vacationing in Puerto Rican beaches, you’ll be surprised to know that the world is slowly unraveling with this whole government shutdown entering week four. Last night CNN reported on a massive security breach at a major U.S. airport,
https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1084666236665921537
Was this due to the shutdown, though? Let’s get a few paragraphs into the story:
However, the TSA dismissed suggestions the government shutdown contributed to the security lapse and said a normal amount of staffers were working that day.
“The perception that this might have occurred as a result of the partial government shutdown would be false,” TSA said. “The national unscheduled absence rate of TSA staff on Thursday, January 3, 2019, was 4.8% compared to 6.3% last year, Thursday, January 4, 2018. So in fact, the national call out rate was higher a year ago than this year on that date.”
The TSA noted that it will “hold those responsible appropriately accountable.”
TSA screeners have struggled to detect weapons even in the absence of a shutdown. In 2015, the acting administrator for the TSA was reassigned after a report found that airport screeners failed to detect explosives and weapons in nearly every test that an undercover team conducted at dozens of airports.
Oh, that’s comforting. The TSA isn’t bad at their jobs because they’re short-staffed or unpaid. They are just always bad at it.
Published in General
Well, that’s reassuring.The TSA is just incompetent, that’s all.
It is useful for the press to cover this story in depth now, since that heightens the sense of crisis surrounding the current shutdown.
In 2015, Homeland Security sent teams undercover to test TSA screening procedures — and found a “95% failure rate” according to reports widely published at the time. Acting TSA head Melvin Carraway was subsequently reassigned to a presumably less important role following the announcement of the results.
It seems unlikely to me that 95% of guns go undetected. I know that my own accidental attempt to get a Buck 110 pocket knife through security in carry-on luggage was detected. But I also know that my friend Jerry arrived in Las Vegas after a commercial flight and opened his carry-on to discover one of his Walther PPKs sitting on top of his clothes, so I know some guns get through.
And for a completely unrelated and gratuitously cantankerous note: am I the only person who wishes that images of Twitter comments not be used in non-Twitter stories? Every time I read an article and come across the little Twitter pull-out box, I feel like I’ve picked up a children’s graphic novel. Why do people do it? Because it saves typing? Because it adds some kind of authenticity? (“It was on Twitter, so it must be true….”)
Cut them some slack. It’s only natural that a “bad egg” or two is going to slip past you when you’re dutifully patting down Granny and testing her dentures for explosive residue.
ZOMG! Did he hijack the plane? Did the gun go off causing everyone to plummet to their deaths? Was there a murder, did he whack another passenger?
No?
Might we usefully ask why guns are not allowed on the airplanes of a constitutional government such as ours?
I remember I somehow accidentally got my pocket knife through airport security around 2004 or 2005 as I was used to carrying it everywhere and forget to leave in the car or at home. I don’t know how or when I discovered the error, but I remember that that happened.
I too remember that audits have found failures. I never understood how they calculated the 95% failure rate. Any process involving millions of people per year is going to have errors.
The TSA process is more to give the casual traveller an illusion of safety than for actual safety, so the occasional lapse does not cause me consternation.
And there is no reason to think that a single lapse now is because of the government budget impasse.
I can think of one. There are passengers that try to drown their fear of flying in the concourse bar. Some exhibit anger management issues. There’s no place to hide in a narrow tube when some pyhscotic moron decides to empty a magazine, and someone else in good faith empties a magazine to try and stop the shooter.
You can transport an unloaded firearm in your checked baggage by notifying the airline in advance.
OMG, the riots in the streets are shocking! :-P
Bethany, I saw your piece in the NY Post the other day on population drop. One thing you didn’t mention was abortion. Do you think the abortion mentality plays a role in the population drop in the Liberal parts of the country?
My husband accidentally carried an entire box of straight razors through security. He got to the other side, remembered they were in his dop kit, pulled them out and handed them to the TSA agent. Boy were they surprised. Then he got on the plane and realized he’d gotten through with a 2-in knife too.
Yeah, one time I accidentally carried a straight edge razor on a flight from Paris to Philadelphia, then a connecting flight to Boston. It was in my carry on. I had intended to put it in my checked luggage.
So there is an emergency. The media say so.
Either way, that still seems high to me.