“The threat of sudden destruction, of unpredictable retaliation for unnamed offenses, is a much more potent means of enslavement than explicit dictatorial laws. It demands more than mere obedience; it leaves men no policy save one: to please the authorities; to please—blindly, uncritically, without standards or principles; to please—in any issue, matter or circumstance, for fear of an unknowable, unprovable vengeance.” (“Antitrust: The Rule of Unreason”, Ayn Rand http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/law,_objective_and_non-objective.html)
Introduction and Disclaimer
(This is a fictional story that I 100% made up, and it sooooo DID NOT happen. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, specifically, me, is purely coincidental.)
This summer, I took a vacation to Miami, Florida. I was going to drive there, but I got sick the night before I was to leave. I originally planned to depart Thursday morning, but I was in no condition to drive Thursday. I decided to purchase a plane ticket Friday to make up for the lost time.
I would have carried a gun in a car, as I was driving through “gun-friendly” Southern states that all recognize my Texas gun license or that do not require a permit at all. This is common when I travel by car. If I can legally travel with a gun, then it is very likely I will do so. The gun is part of the kit of safety items I like to have in a car. Other items in my car include: (1) small fire extinguisher, (2) road flares, (3) first aid kit, (4) gas can, (5) sleeping bag, (6) candle (in winter time), (7) matches.
Florida recently changed its gun laws to allow for concealed carry without a permit. In fact, the law changed while I was there, on July 1. (https://www.flgov.com/2023/04/03/governor-ron-desantis-signs-hb-543-constitutional-carry/) However, before July 1, I was legal to carry in Florida because the state recognizes my Texas gun license. (https://www.fdacs.gov/Consumer-Resources/Concealed-Weapon-License/Concealed-Weapon-License-Reciprocity)
I believe there is an element of arbitrariness in the rules and regulations regarding transporting a gun on an airplane. Proceed at your own risk, after doing your own research, or consulting with an attorney. (By way of disclaimer: Don’t take anything I say as legal advise, I’m just some dude on the Internet, yada, yada, yada…)
Researching It Ahead of Time
I’ve known for years that you can technically check a firearm as luggage on most airlines, but I was always hesitant to do that because I didn’t want to accidentally run afoul of some random and unknown law or regulation.
Not only do you have to be familiar with the gun laws of the state you are flying from, you also have to know the laws of the state you are flying to. For instance, I would never, under any circumstances, try to check a gun when flying to any of the states in the Northeastern United States or the West Coast. I believe that being in possession of a handgun without proper permitting and licensing in New York is a felony, and although I might be able to legally check it under Federal law, once I land in New York, I am subject to that state’s highly arbitrary, capricious, and draconian gun laws.
I had lived in the State of Florida for several years as a law student, and had actually possessed a Florida concealed carry permit at that time. I was reasonably familiar with the laws, and with my ability to look them up online and confirm what I could and could not do while carrying a gun in Florida.
For this reason, in this situation, the only laws that were a cause for concern for me were the Federal laws regarding the transport of firearms on an airplane. I did some online research, and looked at the Transportation Safety Administration rules. Surprisingly, the TSA has a web page regarding the transport of firearms, and it provides relatively clear guidance. (https://www.tsa.gov/travel/transporting-firearms-and-ammunition )
I also looked at my airline’s web site, which, in this case, was Southwest Airlines. (https://www.southwest.com/help/baggage/special-baggage-sports-equipment) Southwest provides pretty good guidance on what type of case to put the unloaded firearm in (a hard, locked container that is of sufficient strength to withstand normal handling), as well as how to package your ammo (securely packed in cardboard, wood, or metal boxes designed for carrying small amounts of ammo).
I would recommend flying on Southwest Airlines, or some other airline based in Texas or one of the Southern states, if you plan on transporting a gun by plane. I believe the people working there are more likely to be from Texas or a state with a “gun-culture”, so the employees you deal with will be less likely to be nervous around firearms.
The Gun I Transported To Florida
I decided to take my Smith and Wesson Airweight .38 revolver. (https://www.smith-wesson.com/product/model-442) It only holds five rounds, and is a relatively small caliber weapon, but it is easily concealable, and comfortable to carry. It also has a nice, heavy trigger pull, which I prefer. It’s a revolver, which I think makes it less “scary” to people. I also think that it is more likely to be a “legal” gun in more jurisdictions. I wouldn’t have to worry about some obscure state law regarding magazine capacity bans, for instance. But, the main reason I went with the revolver is because it’s a fairly inexpensive gun, so if it got lost or stolen, I wouldn’t be that upset about it.
How I Packed My Gun And Ammunition For Transport
I used a small aluminum gun case, about a foot wide by about eight inches tall, with a combination lock built into it. Inside the case was foam to cushion the gun. It was similar to, although not exactly the same as, this.
I was somewhat uncertain on how to pack the ammunition. The rules on the TSA web site were not entirely clear to me. I knew the gun had to be unloaded, but how to store the ammunition? The TSA web site said: “For civil enforcement purposes, TSA also considers a firearm to be loaded when both the firearm and ammunition are accessible to the passenger.” https://www.tsa.gov/travel/transporting-firearms-and-ammunition Did this mean that the ammunition needed to be in a separate container entirely from the firearm? Or, was the context TSA was talking about there for whether a firearm was loaded when you tried to go into the secure area of the airport? I thought this is what they meant, but I didn’t want to rely on something so vague. Fortunately, further down, on the same web page, TSA says: “Ammunition may be transported in the same hard-sided, locked case as a firearm if it has been packed as described above.” Southwest also said the same: “The ammunition may be placed in the same container as the firearm…” https://www.southwest.com/help/baggage/special-baggage-sports-equipment The TSA web site also referenced actual federal regulations on the matter: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-175#175.10
Additionally, the TSA web site said that: “Small arms ammunition (up to .75 caliber and shotgun shells of any gauge) must be packaged in a fiber (such as cardboard), wood, plastic, or metal box specifically designed to carry ammunition and declared to your airline.” https://www.tsa.gov/travel/transporting-firearms-and-ammunition I thought that the cardboard box that you buy ammunition in would qualify, although I was not 100% certain on that. This is what I chose to do. To be really certain, I think I’d get a dedicated plastic box meant for holding ammunition, if doing it again. Something like this.
Flying Out of Dallas Love Field
Love Field is the primarily airport that Southwest Airlines uses out of the Dallas area. Checking the gun here was fairly easy.
Southwest has electronic kiosks that allow you to print out the tags to put on your luggage yourself. I approached one of these, and got the stickers that go around the handle of the suitcase. I got one for my suitcase and one for the gun case.
I had called up a friend who is a shooting instructor that day and asked him if he had flown with a gun checked in luggage before, and he said he had. I said I was planning on checking the gun case as a separate piece of luggage.
Southwest says that you can put the gun case inside your suitcase if you want, but I was nervous about that. The reason being is if the gun case was inside my suitcase, I might forget to declare it. If you do not declare it, I believe this is a criminal offense, although I could not find the specific statute that says this. At any rate, when TSA x-rays the luggage, they will see the gun, and you will not have a good time, regardless of whether you get arrested. (And, I’m sure you’ll get arrested.)
I told my friend about this concern, and he pointed out that having the gun case out on its own was going to make it obvious I was checking a firearm, which might make it more likely to get stolen by someone working at the airport, plus it would make the airport employees more nervous to see the gun case. I thought this was also a valid point, but I decided this was less of a danger than forgetting to declare the gun at the ticket counter.
So, anyway, I got the stickers for the gun case and my suitcase at the electronic kiosk, I then walked up to the line to the ticket counter. There was a Southwest employee standing at the end of the line, and he asked me what was in the gun case. (It was pretty obvious it was a gun case, because it was too small to be anything else.) I said “firearm” in as flat and calm a voice as I could. This was my only problem at Love Field. The Southwest employee said something like: “You were supposed to check that over there,” and he motioned with his hand to someplace non-descript. Then he added: “But, you can do it here, too”. This was a point of confusion for me. Southwest says: “You must declare the gun at the ticket counter…”(https://www.southwest.com/help/baggage/special-baggage-sports-equipment ) But, I wasn’t sure what “the ticket counter” was. Is that the electronic kiosks that issues your boarding pass and the stickers for the luggage? I hadn’t seen an option on the computer to declare the firearm. I assumed the “ticket counter” was where you checked your luggage. This Southwest employee seemed to think there was some other place, but he never specified. This is exactly the sort of problem you are likely to encounter when transporting a gun by plane. The employees and law enforcement at the airport don’t seem to know the law or the rules, and there is an element of arbitrariness in them because things like “ticket counter” are not well-defined. You risk arrest and prosecution because words are subject to conflicting interpretations.
I waited my turn in the luggage check-in line, and was initially helped by a younger woman. I held up the gun case and said: “This is a firearm I need to declare.” The younger woman called over an older woman who was presumably her supervisor. The older woman explained to her what she needed to do. The older woman handed me a small slip of paper about the size of an index card that said “Southwest Airlines Firearms Declaration Tag”, and had a spot for my name and address, as well as my airline flight number. On the back was a series of statements that said things like “The firearm chamber is free of ammunition”, with a place to sign at the bottom. I signed the card and handed it back to the older woman. She said: “Do you want to put the gun case inside your suit case?” I said: “I can if you want me to.” She said something like: “It’s better that way because a little case like yours is likely to walk off somewhere.” I unlocked my suit case, and the Southwest employee put the gun in there. She tossed the firearms declaration card on top of the gun case, which surprised me a bit, since it might become separated from the gun case during transit. I told the Southwest employee the lock on the suitcase was TSA-compliant, so they should be able to open it without any problem, then closed and locked my suitcase.
From there, I headed to the security checkpoint, and passed through that, which isn’t too difficult for me, because I have the TSA pre-check ID number.
Flying Out of Miami International Airport
I got so nervous about flying back from Miami International Airport, I considered either shipping the gun back to Texas, or selling it at a pawn shop.
Both of those options would have been difficult, however. My understanding is I cannot ship a gun unless it is done through a Federally Licensed Firearms dealer. I wasn’t even sure that an out of state person in Florida could sell a gun at a pawnshop.
I also thought about buying a screwdriver and taking the gun apart before putting it in the gun case, but I was concerned that might cause me to run afoul of some law. For all I knew, transporting gun parts might have a completely separate set of arbitrary and capricious regulations.
The ammunition was also a concern to me. How sure was I about that box I was transporting it in? Had I actually read on the TSA web site that you could put the ammo box in the same hard, locked case as the gun, or had I just imagined that? I thought about getting rid of the ammo, but how would I do that and not potentially run into legal trouble? Maybe there was some obscure law I didn’t know about for disposing of ammunition?
The reason I was nervous is that although Florida can be considered a Southern State up around the panhandle area, that becomes less and less true the further south you travel. By the time you reach Miami, you are in a Latin American cultural area. I suspected that my time checking a gun at Miami International Airport was going to be more difficult, and that if I made any inadvertent mistakes, it was far more likely that I’d get fully prosecuted by overzealous law enforcement.
I went down to the public computer room at the hotel I was staying at, and reviewed the Southwest Airlines rules and TSA rules on gun and ammunition transport again. I also printed them out so that I could carry them with me when I went to the airport.
After that, I decided I’d just move forward with transporting the gun and ammunition as I had when traveling from Texas. I decided that the mere possibility that some government bureaucrat would try to prosecute me on some non-objective and poorly defined law or regulation was not going stop me from living my life.
Miami International Airport was definitely more nerve-racking. I carried the gun case outside my suitcase as I had before, in order to ensure I would not forget to declare it at the ticket counter.
Something I did differently was to put an Apple AirTag inside the gun case. so that I could potentially track it on my phone, if I needed to. This actually worked, as I could see the AirTag on my phone when I was waiting for my luggage at Love Field, upon my return.
I approached a Southwest employee and asked if the luggage check place was the “ticket counter”. I made sure to use the exact phrase “ticket counter”, since Southwest says “You must declare the gun at the ticket counter…” ( https://www.southwest.com/help/baggage/special-baggage-sports-equipment ) The employee confirmed that. There would then be less of a question that I had gone to what a Southwest employee told me was the “ticket counter”. When it was my turn, I approached the Southwest employee behind the counter at the baggage check, held up the gun case, and said, “I’m checking a firearm.”
The lady at the counter didn’t seemed fazed by it. She gave me a firearms declaration card, which was the same as the one at Love Field. I filled it out, and signed the back again. She took some tape, and taped the card to the outside of the gun case, which made a lot more sense to me. I then asked her if she wanted to put the gun case inside my suitcase. She answered in the affirmative. After that, I though I’d be done. At Love Field, they had taken my suitcase with the gun case in it and just tossed it on the baggage carousel. But, a guy approached me, and the woman said I should go with him and take the suitcase with me. I said okay, and followed the guy, who was a TSA employee. We walked to a door, where another TSA employee came out. I handed the suitcase to the other TSA guy, who said “wait here.” I thought he was talking to the first TSA guy, so I said: “Do you need anything else from me?” He said: “I said you need to wait here.” So, I stood there. The first guy who had escorted me went inside the room with the other TSA guy, but then came back out and stood next to me. It definitely felt like I was being investigated or detained by law enforcement. My TSA escort had a fairly heavy Latin American accent of some sort, which made him difficult to understand. I thought he asked me something about whether I had been to Boston or New York. I told him: “No, I flew here from Texas. I was on vacation here, only in Miami.” I suspected he was trying to get me to say that I had been in Boston or New York because of their draconian gun laws, or because the Feds are on the lookout for gun smugglers to those states. About ten minutes later, the TSA agent inside the room came back out, gave me the thumbs up, and said: “You’re good to go.” I said thanks, and the other TSA agent walked me over to the TSA checkpoint for entering the secured area of the airport. I fully expected to get called on the PA system at some point, while I waiting for my flight. I wasn’t really comfortable until I was in the air, on my way back to Texas.
I wonder what the TSA guy inside the room was doing? I’m guessing he opened my suitcase, and examined the gun case. He didn’t have the combination, so he couldn’t have opened the gun case unless he somehow guessed the combination or could somehow pick the lock. I suspect he tossed my suitcase, checking for any loose rounds that I hadn’t properly packed. I am not sure what would have happened if he had found one, since I don’t know what the penalty would be for that. For all I know, it’s a felony to have loose ammunition in your suitcase. Again, it’s the arbitrariness and the plethora of laws that make this whole process unnerving.
Notes To Self, If I Transport a Gun By Plane Again
I am not sure that I’d do this again. I think the risk of arbitrary prosecution under arbitrary and capricious governmental regulations is probably not worth it. (And, of course, this is all just a fictional story I made up, that definitely did not happen.) I didn’t really think there was a need to carry the gun most of the time while in Miami. I certainly didn’t think I needed it inside the hotel I was staying at. But, if I were going to do this in the future, I have created the following “guidelines” for myself:
Fly on an airline based in a gun-friendly state.
Check a gun you don’t mind getting stolen or lost.
Check a revolver because it’s less “scary” to people.
Take a picture of the gun’s serial number on your phone so that you can easily report it as lost or stolen.
Turn on your phone’s video-recorder at the airport, and at least get audio of the whole check-in process. (But, make sure you are not running afoul of any wiretap or other recording statutes doing this.)
Put an Apple AirTag in The Gun Case
Dress business casual, or better, and have a clean-cut appearance.
Check and double-check that the gun is actually unloaded and in the locked gun case before you leave for the airport.
Don’t bring any carryon items on the airplane, so that there is no chance you inadvertently have a gun or ammunition when you go through the TSA security checkpoints.
Make sure there are no loose ammunition rounds in your suitcase or on your person before you go to the airport. Count out how many rounds you take with you, and make sure they are properly stored before going to the airport.
Buy an ammunition container instead of using the container the rounds come in at the store.
Be polite and courteous to the people at the airport, but be firm regarding your legal right to do what you are doing. Do not volunteer any information you are not legally required to give. Assume that law enforcement, TSA personnel, and airline staff are not your friends, and assume they will not cut you a break if you screw up.
Deal with airline personnel as much as possible, and make them your initial point of contact, rather than TSA or law enforcement officers. You are a customer to airline personnel, whereas TSA and law enforcement sees everyone as a potential criminal. For instance, if you are looking for the Southwest ticket counter to declare the firearm, approach a Southwest employee and ask them, not a TSA official or a cop.
Print out the rules from the airline web site and the TSA web site on transporting firearms and ammunition, highlight the relevant language, and carry it with you. If airline personnel or TSA question any of your decisions regarding how to package the firearm or ammunition, show them the rules you followed.
