Salt Lake City UT May 21 2013 Less than halfway through the year, the number of firearms seized from passengers at Salt Lake City International Airport has already nearly matched the number for all of 2012.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) confirmed Monday that its screeners at the airport had arrested a 48-year-old American Fork woman found to have a loaded 9 mm pistol in her luggage Saturday morning. She was en route to Chicago.
She was booked into the Salt Lake County jail on suspicion of misdemeanor possession of an firearm at an airport and then released. Last Tuesday another passenger en route to Chicago, a male, was arrested when found to be carrying a loaded handgun, also a 9 mm.
With Saturday’s arrest the airport reached 18 firearms seized so far this year. In all of 2012, TSA screeners confiscated 20 handguns in Utah.