What a completely surreal evening I had last night. As I'd mentioned, I reluctantly dropped John off at the airport around 4pm or so. I went with him to the baggage counter and waited while he filled out the paperwork to declare his firearms, walked with him to the security line, and kissed him goodbye. I thought I might need some distraction, so I had agreed to meet some friends for dinner at 7pm. I went home, changed, and then headed to the restaurant. Just as I pulled into the parking lot, my cell phone rang.

I said hello, and a polite stranger asked if I was [my name], identified himself as a police officer, then asked if I was safe and okay. My forehead wrinkled, and I said I was. The officer then asked if I knew John, and whether he had (a) been staying with me this past week and (b) brought firearms with him for the purpose of shooting at the local range. I said yes to both, and jumped to the conclusion that John must've not cleared each and every gun - I know I'm obsessive about checking mine when I travel - it wouldn't be unreasonable for him to have left one magazine in when dealing with the number of guns he brought with him. So the officer then asked if I'd mind coming to the airport to talk to him.

I left messages with my dinner companions and pulled into the drab police building at Dulles airport about 20 minutes later.

First it was very odd - they wouldn't even tell me that John was there. I had to ask for the officer who'd called me *by name* and say why I was there, and then state my "relationship" to John. It was only then that they even admitted they had him. The officer who'd called me came out and introduced himself, then introduced me to two FBI agents who asked if I wouldn't mind talking to them about John. One was named Joel - clean-cut broad-shouldered all-American looking guy. The other one, Tim, was tall, pale, and lanky with a blonde crew cut and blue eyes. Both seemed pretty young - couldn't have been out of their early thirties if that. Like the officer before them, they were extremely polite.

They told me that John was in a little trouble. They dodged my questions at first, and then said he had brought a firearm with him that he had not declared. The way in which they said it implied that he had a gun I hadn't seen, that it was loaded, and that it was on his person. They didn't outright say any of those things - but they very adroitly led me right to that conclusion. Then they started asking me questions. Who was I, how did I meet John, what were our political views, did we "meet with others who might have similar political views" on his visit... lots of things that were clearly leading right to the idea that he was some sort of milita nut who was here on a recruiting mission or some such.

They started out treating me like some poor stupid femme who'd been unknowingly lured into some sort of illicit affair with a Very Dangerous Fellow. On top of that, both were extremely flirty. They seemed to think that I didn't know John had any guns with him. When I said I did, they wanted to know how many and what types. Then whether I knew that he had "illegal high capacity magazines with him." I said that so far as I knew, all of his high-cap mags were pre-ban and thus not illegal. They asked if I knew he'd made "modifications" to his guns. I said sure, he'd put a new trigger in his Glock while he was here. Stupid, stupid questions calculated to make me think he was some sort of maniac.

Then they moved on and asked me if I knew what kind of "literature" he had with him. This really irked me. I was under the impression that there were no banned books in America, and one can read whatever the hell one pleases. On top of that, they said "he has a Das Reich t-shirt with him - is he a white supremacist?" To paraphrase Darling John, "does he *look* white to you?" I explained that a friend had left the shirt at my house while changing for dinner, and that John had taken it with him so that he could mail it back to said friend with some thank you gifts. And John approached this better than I did - the shirt was not his size.

White supremacists. Hmph. My gun instructor is black. Hell, the guy who owns the range we frequent is black. John himself is half-puerto rican. The gentleman to whom the 'Das Reich' shirt belonged is married to a Lebanese belly dancer.

Anyhow.

They started asking about me. Did I shoot, when did I pick up the hobby and why, did my father know that a man from Montana carrying firearms was visiting me. Why wasn't my father worried for my safety. HAH! Like I'm some poor defenseless doormat. I explained that my father raised me in such a way that he didn't *have* to worry about me.

Then the kicker. The "this is really supposed to shock you" question: "are you aware that he had two pairs of handcuffs in his luggage?" I said I was. Then they said "why would he be travelling with those? At which point I said, "are you sure you want me to answer that question?" They said yes, and I said "Some people *like* that sort of thing."

They both blushed. And quickly moved on. There were other strange things, like "your friend could be in a lot of trouble, yet you seem very calm, why is that?" and "did he meet anyone when he was not with you, unbeknownst to you?" (duh, if I don't *know* about it how can I answer that question?" and "would you be willing to take a lie detector test?"

Overall it was surreal, like I said. It was like something out of a television show - guy from Montana, travelling with guns (gee, there's a shocker), he MUST be a terrorist! The one thing they kept saying over and over was "tell us about John, anything you can think of." I'd say "what specifically do you want to know?" and they'd just shrug and say "anything." I refused to do that, beyond noting his fondness for Krispy Kreme donuts. After about 45 minutes they ran out of things to ask me and told me they were about to interview John, and that I could wait in the lobby.

The lobby was like an ice chest, so I gave the officers at the desk my number and went to get some coffee. Figuring I'd be waiting awhile, I also grabbed a copy of Stephen King's The Gunslinger. I'd tried reading The Drawing of the Three once and hated it, but my friends have been raving about the revised edition so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm sitting back in the police lobby reading and sipping my Latte, and Tim The Friendly FBI Agent comes out and says "you know, what are we supposed to think when we see you reading books like that?" He wasn't kidding.

WHAT THE @#%!???

Since when is it "suspicious" in this country to read fucking Stephen King? It wasn't "Blowing Up Airports 101." It wasn't even nonfiction for goodness sake. At this point, I asked Tim for a business card. He said he didn't have any, but I was welcome to his phone number, and winked at me. Guess he likes handcuffs too.

While I waited in the lobby, several other police officers came out to talk to me, just casually. Said they'd heard I liked shooting and wanted to hear about what kinds of guns I had, that sort of thing. Each and every one was flirtacious as all get out, even the ones old enough to be my dad. I overheard one of them say to his friend as he was walking away, "she's really something." *rolls eyes* Lecherous bastards.

When they finally released John, around 10pm (remember, I'd gotten the call at 7, and he had to have been there since about 5), the officer who came out to tell me they were releasing him said to me, very pointedly "you might want to be rethink your lifestyle choices, and maybe think twice before travelling with your firearms."

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Why anybody flies (unless absolutely required to) is beyond me.  It used to be fun.  Now its humiliating and expensive.

Scott

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I know, a lot of rambling right there.  Just more ammunition to back up our disdain for the TSA.

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I wonder if there was a warrant signed to seach the luggage?  This is just nuts.  Too bad for those two.  They are on the watch-list now.

Scott

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Check out the comments- one of the items listed as confiscated was "copy of the bill of rights."

Mike

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They don't need a warrant.

By stepping on airport property, you give up all your Rights.

They can feel up your wife's breasts, and anally rape you if they'd like.

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We're flying to Austin Texas on Sunday only because I promised the kids we'd visit them for Christmas this time and we don't have enough time to drive down there. This will be my first flight since the inception of Nazi airways. I'm not taking a gun and I'm still expecting a hassle. I'll probably get in some amount of trouble because I have very little patience with dip shit security people acting like they have authority over me. I hate the very thought of going through this bullshit.  It's sort of a shame as I really love to fly.

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 I reached over a pulled the bolt back and a round ejected.  He then yelled " Loaded Weapon "  

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Un-f***ing-believable! [V]

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"the officer who came out to tell me they were releasing him said to me, very pointedly "you might want to be rethink your lifestyle choices, and maybe think twice before travelling with your firearms."

The proper response to that is, "Sir, that sounds like a threat.  You took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States.  Perhaps you should rethink that before making threats about violating citizens civil rights."

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...This guy also had a bunch of questionable books... makes me suspicious that he had a whole bunch of bad looking things with him.

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When exactly did books become illegal? And when did "bad looking things" become reason enough to piss all over someone's rights?

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...Expect the police to arrest you in the above situations if a problem occurs.

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The above listed hypotheticals are questions of JUDGEMENT, while the situation that occurred is a question of LAW. Where did the citizen in question violate the LAW?

here were five guns in one gun case and they said the AR-15 was the dangerous article. Why they picked that one out of the five in there seems wierd...

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It is my belief, .... the citizen put too many firearms into one of his cases, which is against that airport's rules.  

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Hey, what happened to the guy who got the glock mags stolen from his luggage?  Who was that, and was there an update?