Woman caught with loaded handgun in her purse at Pittsburgh International

An Ohio woman tried to take a loaded handgun through security at Pittsburgh International Airport on Monday, the 16th person to do so this year, authorities said.

The woman, from Youngstown, was stopped by Transportation Security Administration officers after they spotted a handgun in her purse as it went through the X-ray machine, said TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein.

Farbstein said the woman told officials she forgot she had the gun in her purse. The 9mm handgun was loaded with seven rounds, she said.

It was the 16th time a passenger has been stopped with a firearm at Pittsburgh’s checkpoints so far this year.

Across the country in 2020, TSA officers caught 3,257 firearms – that’s despite the fact that the number of passengers fell by 500 million compared to 2019. That works out to twice as many firearms per 1 million passengers screened in 2020 compared to pre-pandemic in 2019. About 83% of the more than 3,200 guns were loaded, Farbstein said.

Twenty-one of those guns were caught at Pittsburgh International, Farbstein said. Prior to the massive drop in air travel in early 2020, the number of guns caught at the airport had been steadily increasing for years: 32 in 2017, 34 in 2018 and 35 in 2019.

The number of passengers traveling through Pittsburgh International has been increasing after the pandemic-driven drop in 2020. In June, the number of travelers increased by more than 200% over June 2020. There’s been a 16% increase in the first half of 2021 compared to the first six months of last year, according to airport records.

Passengers can fly with their guns, but they cannot be in one’s carry-on baggage. They must be packed, unloaded, in a hard-sided case, and checked alongside other checked baggage.