Transportation Security Administration takes finger nail clippers from armed U.S. soldier

Red State accounts the story of a business of gun-toting soldiers who lately returned to the United States after a tour of Afghanistan. The gear the soldiers brought had already been inspected and approved by United States of America Customs, but Transportation Security Administration felt the need to entirely empty the flight and thoroughly inspect the gun-toting soldiers (minus ammo). They found nail clippers within the bag of one soldier – mission accomplished, TSA. Post resource – TSA confiscates nail clippers from gun-toting soldier by Personal Money Store.

The threat of nail clippers versus an M4 carbine rifle

Rules were being followed when the TSA confiscated the tiny nail clippers. Compared to the M4 rifle, they were nothing though. There might not are any ammo in the gun but a highly trained soldier would not need any ammo to do harm. Tiny nail clippers would be hard to maneuver. Such as it is, this event is yet another opportunity for the media to have a field day with TSA, an organization that has been in the news quite a bit lately for full body scanners, groping pat downs and the people who are fed up with it all. Now there’s even a Twitter-based contest called #touchedbytsa, where the prize is an iPod Touch.

More of the TSA nail clippers story

According to Red State, when the plane landed in Indianapolis, all 330 people on board were evacuated by airport security and taken to a holding area. All the soldiers on the flight – at least 100 – were carrying firearms, from M4 carbines and M9 pistols to M-240B machine guns. The weapons weren’t loaded, and all ammo was cleared and secured by U.S. Customs. TSA reportedly considered making all the soldiers unpack their baggage for piece-by-piece re-inspection, despite the fact that Customs had already screened it.

According to Red State, it took an hour for bomb-sniffing dogs to go over the soldiers’ luggage. The nail clippers were found following the TSA inspected them again after the soldiers sat for a few hours. Before this nobody knew about the clippers. TSA had no knowledge of it. The TSA seemed to be on a power trip according to the Red State and other media sources. Some say finding the clippers just had been a bonus on top of everything.

Articles cited

Red State

redstate.com/erick/2010/11/18/another-tsa-outrage/

The true danger of nail clippers

youtube.com/watch?v=aZw3qpnaK3o