By: Justin Feinberg
New York tourists are proving to be more dangerous than they look, as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) caught a record number of them trying to smuggle in guns last year, with the expectation being that the number will only go up.
One of the most famous ones is Jets defensive lineman Quinnen Williams, who was arrested for gun possession at LaGuardia Airport. Williams was stopped at the Delta ticket counter with an unloaded heater in his carry-on, but far more guns are found in checked bags.
In the past five years, the Queens District Attorney’s Office has prosecuted roughly 480 airport gun cases from JFK and LaGuardia, according to the Queens Daily Eagle. The bulk of the weapons were discovered in checked luggage by ticket agents and turned over to the Port Authority Police.
Nearly 90% of the guns confiscated by the TSA last year had bullets in their chambers.
“They’re from all over,” defense lawyer Elizabeth Crotty said. “Some have been ex-military or in security. They’ve come in with their gun in a lock box — not loaded — and they go check the gun. They’re stopped by the TSA or sometimes even by the airline. The Port Authority police come in and they stay overnight in Central Booking.”
A defender of these tourists is lawyer Steve Raiser, who believes that many of them don’t fully understand how serious New York State is about gun-laws.
The TSA’s website reminds passengers that they need the right firearm permit for wherever they’re going and that they face federal civil penalties of up to $13,000 if they bring a gun through the screening line.
Another example transpired in July 2019, when a North Carolina grandmother was stopped at LaGuardia Airport, when a checkpoint X-ray machine showed a loaded handgun in her red roll-on. Her two grandchildren looked on as she tried to tell officers the bag belonged to somebody else.
The strict enforcement of these rules comes from years of fiasco.
In 2015, Elizabeth Anne Enderli of Houston showed up at the 9/11 Memorial with her 9mm and .380 pistols. She had a concealed carry permit from Texas so she figured she was in the clear when she asked the security guards where she should store the guns while she toured the museum. She was promptly charged with criminal possession of a weapon.
“All are felony cases, but it can go to a whole other level: loaded versus unloaded,” Raiser said. “It becomes a violent felony if the gun is loaded. And that can carry serious consequences — prison.”
Most of the guilty parties don’t end up behind bars, though. More often than not, cases in Queens get dismissed or knocked down to a lesser charge like disorderly conduct.
