TSA Weighs Airport Gun Ban in Unsecured Areas
ABC News ^ | 8-8-8 | Thomas Frank

The Transportation Security Administration may allow airports to ban firearms from terminals, parking lots, roads and other airport areas where many states currently allow passengers to carry lethal weapons.

Airport officials and lawmakers are watching closely as the TSA weighs a request by Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to modify its security program to impose an airportwide ban on guns. It is the first such request to TSA from an airport.

"Any decisions we make that affect (Atlanta) could affect every other airport in the country," TSA spokesman Christopher White said Thursday.

Federal law bars passengers from bringing weapons to or past airport checkpoints. But in many airports, state law allows passengers to carry guns and knives in unsecured areas such as a main terminal — often to airport officials' dismay.

"I don't really like the idea of people coming here with weapons and carrying them into terminals, but that's their right as citizens of the state of Texas," said Alan Black, public safety chief at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.You're damned RIGHT it's my RIGHT - asshole -RD

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