JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents found twice as many firearms per million passengers at airport security checkpoints nationwide in 2020 compared to 2019.
Overall, officers discovered a total of 3,257 firearms on passengers or in their carry-on bags at checkpoints. Of those firearms, about 83% were loaded.
Recommended Videos
To put that in some perspective, agents caught about 10 guns per one million passengers screened, a significantly higher rate than any other year since the agency’s inception, compared to about 5 guns per one million passengers screened in 2019.
MORE | Top 10 Airports with total guns found by TSA in 2020
That came as total passengers screened in 2020 fell by 500 million.
In 2019, TSA officers stopped a record 4,432 firearms, of which 87 percent were loaded.
The most was Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport with a total of 220 guns found. Dallas came in second with 176 and at Denver International Airport agents found 104.
According to the report agents at Jacksonville’s International Airport intercepted 36 guns in checked bags in all of 2020, 24th highest in the country.