Metro

Tons of tourists are coming into New York City with loaded guns

Flyers at local airports are bringing along more than their luggage and carry-ons.

The Transportation Security Administration caught the most guns ever last year — and expects the number to only keep ticking up. Just Thursday, Jets defensive lineman Quinnen Williams 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.

“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.”





Lots of the travelers don’t realize just how serious New York is about firearms, said lawyer Steve Raiser, who has defended tourists.

“You should know the law wherever you’re going,” he said. “Here, it’s illegal. Period.”

The TSA hits the point hard on its website, reminding passengers that they need the right 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.

Williams, 22, had a license for the unloaded Glock 19 pistol from his home state of Alabama, Port Authority Police said. He hasn’t weighed in on what happened and team officials declined to comment other than to say they had talked with their 2019 first-round draft pick.





The TSA also nabs tourists in airport security lines carrying guns. Both LaGuardia and JFK saw big jumps in the number of guns seized this way, with a 300% jump at JFK and 250% surge at LaGuardia in 2019, according to the TSA. Eight guns were grabbed at JFK and seven at LaGuardia; the airports had two each seized in 2018. Newark saw a 21% drop, from 14 to 11.

The uptick mirrors one nationwide, and parallels “more people … traveling,” said TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein. In 2019, the agency set a record for its 18-year history: 4,432, or about 12 a day, up 5% from the 4,239 the year before. The top five airports: Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, 323; Dallas/Fort Worth, 217; Denver International, 40; George Bush in Houston, 138; and Phoenix, 132.





Sometimes, bringing a gun on vacation is a genuine goof, Raiser said. Travelers have also been known to accidentally pick up someone else’s suitcase.

In July, a North Carolina grandmother found herself in hot water at LaGuardia 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.

Sometimes, a tourist actually makes it out of the airport armed.

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.





“This whole thing is, pardon my language, bulls–t,” said Aimey Richardson, who had come on a girls getaway with Enderli. “Our husbands don’t give us a hug and a kiss, they pat us down to make sure we’re armed. We’re not allowed to go out without them.”

Mistake or not, the law is unforgiving — especially if the weapon is loaded. And nearly 90% of the guns confiscated by the TSA last year had bullets in their chambers.

“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 scofflaws don’t end up behind bars, though. More often the cases in Queens get dismissed or knocked down to a lesser charge like disorderly conduct, Crotty said.

“In the past,” she said, “they’ve been pretty reasonable.”





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