Airport screeners find loaded gun in teddy bear

[davidinalameda]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TRAVEL/07/17/gun.teddy.bear/index.html

Screeners at a passenger checkpoint at the Orlando International Airport last Friday found a loaded handgun hidden inside a stuffed teddy bear belonging to a 10-year-old boy, the Transportation Security Administration has told CNN

[lkinsale]

1. Something to think about

"We are critized a lot for screening grannies and babies: 'Why are they checking this? My two-year old isn't a terrorist.' This underscores the need to screen everyone and everything," said Johnson.

"It's lucky that we kept it off the flight," he added, noting it could have fired mid-flight while the child was playing with the stuffed animal.

I've often wanted to say this when standing in line and people ridicule the care taken to check kids and baby carriages.

Just imagine if someone offered an 8-yr-old a Gameboy and said, "Here, you can have this, but don't tell your mom." How many kids would turn it down or tell?

[hang a left]

2. I don't know but

how many 10 years olds still cling to teddy bears?

[JohnOneillsMemory]

3. "Ashcroft rounds up thousands of 10-year olds for Gitmo Bay". Joke...

This is why scoffing at security people checking out little old ladies and other unlikely terrorist suspects is not smart. When I was boarding a plane at a small airport in Greece in 1996, a small child with a knapsack ran around the metal detector at the gate. I suggested to the Uzi-toting security guys who were laughing at this that they should do something instead of being amused by the cute little boy's antics. They clutched their Uzi's and glared at me as if to say "you have a problem with how we do our job? Maybe we should mess with YOU!" Gawd, I hate flying to work (I tour with musicians) all the time. I consider changing careers just so I wouldn't have to commute to work through military checkpoints getting the 'polite prison guard treatment.'

[DUreader]

4. This story stinks. From the article:

Screeners became suspicious after the
teddy bear was x-rayed, and a small hole
was found on the bottom of the stuffed
toy, the official said.

Suspicious after the xray?

WTF? A gun would show up clearly in an xray!

No details on who gave it to them.