Does the TSA know what a gun looks like?

The bumblers at the Transportation Security Administration let an NBA executive fly from New Orleans to Newark with a loaded handgun in his bag without calling a foul, The Post has learned.

New Orleans Hornets VP Joshua Richardson had allegedly taken the weapon on his trip to the New York area by accident after he grabbed his wife’s bag containing the weapon, instead of his own.

The b-ball blunder came to light last night after TSA agents at Newark Airport found the .38-caliber handgun in the luggage as Richardson tried to fly home, Port Authority police reported.

The 36-year-old exec was detained at Newark’s Terminal A as he tried to check in for his flight.

He was charged with one count of criminal possession of a weapon and was expected to be released on his own recognizance.

“The investigation revealed the gun was legally registered to his wife,” an airport official told The Post last night.

“He flew up from New Orleans on Wednesday and was flying back.

“He said he inadvertently took his wife’s luggage with the gun stored in its inside pouch.”

Richardson is in charge of broadcasting and event presentation for the team.

He lives in the New Orleans suburb of Mandeville, La.

It was not clear why he was visiting the New York metro area.

Calls to his cellphone were not answered last night, and the team did not respond to an e-mail.

TSA headquarters last night offered no explanation, saying only that the agency “takes matters such as this very seriously and will conduct a full investigation.”

That was the same response the TSA had 24 hours earlier after screeners at Orlando International Airport failed to notice a loaded handgun in a woman’s carry-on bag, letting her fly to New Jersey with the pistol in her purse.

The woman, an Orlando-area firefighter with a gun license, breezed through security and found her gun in flight. She reported it to a cop when she got to Jersey.

She was let off without criminal charges because she had turned herself in.

In April, a Manhattan woman carried a switchblade through La Guardia Airport’s security screening and made it all the way to the gate before cops managed to stop her.

And a month before that, it took TSA agents 10 minutes before calling cops on a Manhattan woman who walked through security screening at JFK with a dagger in her bag.