Top 5 TSA Finds Of 2011 That Probably Saved People From Being Killed

While we often speak ill of the TSA and all they do to hinder our ability to travel quickly the truth is there are some times when they do their job well enough to save lives, perhaps your own.

In 2011 the TSA was able to stop guns from boarding airplanes, confiscate stun guns and more.

Sure some passengers had to stop shoe bombers on their own after the plane already taken off and yes there were some unnecessary searches performed against practically quadriplegic passengers and children but there were also some nice finds.

Here’s a few of the excellent finds the TSA made in 2011.

• C4 Explosives: A passenger flying out of Yuma claims he wanted to show the cool explosives to his family, the government wasn’t buying it. Even a small amount of C4 could take down a jumbo jet. TSA 1 bad guy with explosives zero.
• .380 pistol: Some 76-year-old rocket scientists (no he wasn’t really a rocket scientist) thought he could depart from Detroit with the pistol securely strapped to his side. Apparently the passenger just “forget it was there” when he was taken into custody.
• Stun Gun disguised as a Smartphone: This might be one of the more clever grabs by the agency, apparently a passenger attempting to pass through LAX security had a stun gun that was disguised as a smartphone.
• Snakes: Okay so this one couldn’t be that hard to find, a passenger in Miami tried to pull his very own Samuel L. Jackson by bringing snakes on a plane. TSA agents realized he put the creepy little critters in his own pants, while they were on his person.
• Firearms: While we don’t need to point to one case it’s worth mentioning that 1,200 firearms were detected and confiscated from airports around the United States. In most cases passengers claimed they simply forgot the firearms were in their bags.

You can find the full list on the Official TSA Blog.

In the meantime here’s a photograph of TSA confiscated weapons from 2011: