Last month I flew from JFK to Ireland with a shotgun. I do this frequently from Newark, NJ without problems. This time I got to the Aer Lingus counter and told the lady, a really hot looking girl from northern Ireland, that I had a firearm. She asked to see it, verified that is was not loaded by looking at the empty chambers and asked if I had any ammunition. I told her no. She said "fine, close it up" and walked me and my bag over to where some baggage guys were loading bags onto a conveyor. At that point I guess she made the mistake of mentioning to the supervisor there that my bag contained a firearm. It went downhill from there. We had to go back to the check-in counter where she had to phone TSA. Twenty minutes later two NYC cops arrived to inspect the shotgun. After I opened the case they made me stand eight feet back while one looked down both barrels with his flashlight. They also asked me if I had notified the airline in advance. The whole fiasco took another twenty minutes and they were obviously making it up as they went along. The upshot was that my bag, which contained and hid the guncase as an anti theft measure, was hung with a big orange sticker saying "FIREARM". My protests were in vain. I complained that JFK has a bad record for firearm theft and hanging a "steal me" tag on the bag wouldn't help matters. I can't fault the airline. This nonsense is coming from the US Government. What makes it worse is that the policy seems to depend on the guy with the uniform and the phase of the moon. Maybe I'm just getting old but I don't remember things being so FUBAR. I feel sorry for someone growing up who will never even have an idea of how easy people used to be around firearms.
Nial
