GIZMODO
This itty bitty plastic rifle was recently declared a “firearm” by airport security officials at Gatwick Airport. Which I guess makes the toy soldier it had been attached to an enemy combatant?
Cripes!
Found by ECA.
Gatwick Airport. Like Lagos International, but British.
Shouldn’t a firearm actually be capable of, um, firing something?
If he had pointed it at the idiot in security and said “bang!”, would they have charged him with assault with a deadly weapon? Or would they simply have tasered him?
Worried:
That a small armed solider will pop up, Run to the Pilot cabin, SQUEEZE under the door, and hijack the plane..
IF a pilot were this PARANOID, I would have him in a RUBBER ROOM.
Thought crime.
Some TSA (or British equivalent,) decided he thought it was cool so decided to steal, uh, confiscate it.
A little power is going to some idiot’s head and some plastic toy is lost.
What was the idiot’s name?
I think I’d like to know so it can live on in infamy.
That’s another reason why I’d use FedEx to ship my cool shit to myself and fly as close to naked as I legally could.
You don’t want any toys getting the TSA agents blood pressure up.
I wonder if a French Tickler would have gotten through?
Ahm gonna draw me a piktur of a gun…yep. That’ll get ther atenshun.
They r so smart those tsa guys…ah wanna be one when ah grows up.
i wonder what they’d do with this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Funniest_Joke_in_the_World
foobar in #7 said “…wonder if a French Tickler would…”
No it would have been confiscated.
They would have made up some excuse or other because they can steal candy from a baby.
Then, late that night … the idiot would have tried it on.
That’s why you’d want to get the “special boa constrictor model” which stops when the guy’s dick gets chopped off from the lack of blood flow.
#6 @msbpodcast
Its people like you, that are the reason that such stupidity exist.
Your rights are been taking away from you, infront of you, and the best thing you can come up with,
That’s another reason why I’d use FedEx to ship my cool shit to myself and fly as close to naked as I LEGALLY could”
Dumb Ass
He could have used it to hijack a model plane and flown it into a model building!
It’s even funnier – the gun was stuck to a model soldier from the regimental museum that the guy had visited.
#9 – the same airport banned someone because they had a transformer t-shirt. Transformer has a gun, therefore is a weapon !
http://banshirts.com/airport-t-shirt/transformers-t-shirt-banned-at-airport
It would appear the TSA is insane. That means homeland security is insane which goes all the way up to Obama being insane.
I could instantly make the TSA a sensible and efficient department, admired and respected by all…
… but I’m not going to.
in # 12 mojotaker seems to think that there’s fuck all we can do about the tin pot tyrants who declare a six inch toy a weapon. (So they can confiscate it.)
Tell me, oh wise one, what would you do?
There are some things that are as dumb as trying to give a cop a really hard time, but I don’t do them because I like life.
Let ’em think they’ve got power, I don’t care.
As long as I can FedEx my “toys” to/from my friend’s house in Florida. They can’t get to any of ’em.
Some of my toys would definitely give them a chubby.
Sarah Palin’s broach or one of her earrings?
What’s probably more surprising, is how some Republicans would pause to think a toy gun might be a credible threat. For such an “down with big government” and “protect all gun owners” bunch. They always seem ready and willing to submit to the excesses of a Police State.
#15 – not to suggest that the TSA aren’t insane but Gatwick is in London (in Englandshire)
The same country that has perfectly logically, professionally and sanely dealt with IRA bombings for 40years but now goes crazy copying everything the US does – personally i blame showing ’24’ on TV.
#17 msbpodcast
sorry for going off at you, was just a bit frustrated at the whole thing.
I think its time to TREAT THEM, to the world of ULTRA SECURITY…
Raid there home, tear everything apart, and say OOPS! wrong house.
Full body inspections at the STORE/MALL..
SEARCH their homes with the TSA guide lines..
ANYONE got remote cameras…we install them, and if they EVER touch a kid, we arrest them put them in jail and FORGET THE KIDS.
Sure. All funny until a pilot’s eye gets poked out.
So, I guess next, I would have my Guns and Ammo Magazine confiscated because I would be carrying firearms of all types on my person.
The only paper I ever bring/brought to an airport, a train station* (or a Bus Terminus if I ever travel that way again,) is my travel documents.
I’d never take a copy of Guns & Ammo. (Specially not on an iPad.)
There is no way I’m ever taking anything but an old iPod through security.
The TSA is composed of cowardly low-lifes (ones who have never been caught because they don’t have the guts;) the stuff they scrape off of your metaphorical shoe and toss into the trash can.
When I travel I look like I’m an indigent; shabby, ill fitting clothes chosen to not color coordinate.
Nobody ever bother’s me.
If you look like a waste of space and time, its only marginally slightly less effective a repellent that looking insane. (I’m a old, log-haired hippy-freak so I can do “bed head real good.[My cane is a really banged up red piece of wood and red is a color of warning in nature.])
*) I see this coming already. Its only a matter of time until the TSA chokes those off too. I’m not kidding, buy stock in outfits selling telepresence rigs.
#25: You’re just not interested in pushing back, are you?
get COMFORTABLE..
You dont need a tie and suit to fly and SIT for 2-6 hours..
And I would think they would HATE FLEECE WEAR and BACKPACKS.
I learned while being on the STREETS..
going to the theater, and looking GRUDGED, was the BEST privacy and leg room, I EVER WANTED.
At last. Insanity for everyone. The terrorists win.