doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Traveling thru JFK with a shotgun

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

Hi Nial,
Welcome back, if you're still this side. It could have been worse; baggage from US to Ireland is regularly X-rayed and if a gun was discovered and not "properly" recorded on the manifest, you'd be - at best - in for a cartload of paperwork and hassle.
Ryanair will not carry Firearms. Your friend from N I was probably used to shotguns ;-)
K.

NY laws seem to be FUBAR to me. Here in Calif, they seem to be running to catch up to NY. Consequently, I try not to travel by commercial air with a gun if at all possible.

I have flown in and out of all 4 NY area airports (JFK, LaGuardia, Newark & White Plains) a total of 8 times with firearms, 5 different airlines, never had a problem. Just the normal declarations and inspections. Same for returning. I will say the inspections have varied from "please let's see the gun" to "please let's see the ammo". No one has ever checked to see if a gun is loaded, I doubt they'd know how.

It has nothing to do with NY laws, NY doesn't govern airline security. It's the FAA and the airlines.

I have rarely flown internationally with a firearm without the airline screwing up somehow. I find the authorities usually pretty understanding but the airline personnel are often clueless; United seems particularly bad. They just don't know the procedures and make a lot of trouble for everyone else in the process. Dealing with them at Heathrow two days ago over a tranquilizer gun was such a mess that I did not have time to buy my bottle of Laphraoig!

Do you realize if you rearrange the letters in your name your name would be animal c or c animal? Any way........ you didn't say if your gun got there safely. As soon as you said you were heading out of New York my eyes rolled back in my head. Then when you said you were heading to Ireland with a gun......... well, let's not go there. I was waiting for another horror story. But, good luck in future flights. I am so glad I am retired and don't have to worry about the way the country/world is heading. That's the repayment to all the young peckerwoods for driving down the street and making everyone listen to your (C)rap music. Pay backs are hell, aren't they? What was the name of that TV show? JUST SHOOT ME.................Denny Crane

I think it's hilarious that the NYC cops had to shine a flashlight down the barrels to verify the gun was unloaded. Morons, and they carry guns. You think the USA isn't turning into a police state? Guess again.

Should have asked to talk to the owners daughter Connie. One of my better moments in life 1978 Air Lingus sent their football team all the way to Angleton Texas. Our team put them up for a week and we played different towns around to area even a half hour match at the Astro Dome tring to bring soccer to America. About a month latter I as well as the other on our team recived a card from FIFA with our pic on it showing us as International soccer players,about a hundred total in America at that time.

Owners Daughter? Soccer team? Are you sure you are on the right forum? 1978 was 30 years ago...

Yep she got a set of big bore doubles. 30 years ain't all that long but its farther than I'll get again