Traveling, TSA, backpack

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dcal

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Well, I've spent most of the morning reading up on Heller commentary, but I almost forgot to post this question. I did a search, but was unable to find a specific answer.

I'm traveling by plane from NJ to FL this weekend. I'm bringing a back pack with me that does triple duty as my work laptop bag/range bag/carry on for planes. Should I be concerned with that third task given the second? Would it be prudent to go out and get another bag that hasn't been to the range?
 
The only way you might have a problem with a delay is if you get stuck with them doing a residue test and it becomming positive.

Not very common but I had one done to me flying out of Baltimore with a bag I used for shooting also. Test was positive, TSA attendant called and a Maryland state cop and a dog showed up. A search of the bag showed nothing and after a short explaination of what I used the bag for was enough to let me pass.

That was very early in the TSA game, not sure if they treat it any worse now.
 
I've been swabbed before too, but that was before I started shooting. So I guess it's not that uncommon. Anyone else have any recommendations?
 
If you have a suitcase, I'd use it instead. No sense causing yourself to miss your flight, ya know?

Springmom
 
Yeah, on the careful with a bag that has had any chance of residue on it. Even checked bags in some are scanned for residue, and if it shows the bag may not go, especially if they cannot ID you. I worked at airports for 33 years, and I would not want to even let them think you were trying to slip something by. You might just miss your flight, while explaining. A new carry on is cheaper IMHO.
 
A SHORT TIME AFTER 9/11 one of my wife's friends was visiting from Australia. since he had never shot a handgun, I took him to the range, and then to the airport. i dropped him off, drove away, and then got that sinking feeling in my gut.

he had no problems, whatsoever.
 
My personal experience is kind of humorous. I was sitting in Lenardo DaVinci Airport in 1998. I was returning from a CVN operating in the Med having done some tender ministrations to isolate an ongoing chloride problem in a main condenser. My travel bag was a LL Bean backpack that had made numerous trips to gun shows and the range. I was sitting at the gate awaiting my flight back stateside when I observed a K-9 unit doing training at the next gate over. The sniffer was a Labrador and was being rewarded everytime he found the training scent. I watched the dog and thought nothing in particular of it.

When the training evolution completed the dog and an attractive young female handler went by about 10-15 feet away and then the dog alerts very interested in my bag. At that point I gingerly set my my cross word puzzle book down put my hands palm up on my thighs and awaited her instructions. After a few false starts in the language arena she apologized for her dog and chatted politely in beautifully accented English with me. In the mean time a couple of her closest buddies converge on the scene.The questions became a little more pointed as backup arrived. The gist of the conversation was why did our explosives dog in training alert on your bag. I explained my hobbies of hunting and shooting, when asked carefully produced my passport. After a little more questioning they chat together and apparently decide I was very unterroristic, all two meters and 100KGs of me with short blond hair and blue eyes, the backups withdraw and I am left talking hunting dogs with an attractive young dog handler.

Needless to say that bag has not travelled, by air, with me since. When travelling I even have a couple of pairs of shoes that have never been to the range that I use.
 
With the puffer that I am seeing at more and more airports I wouldn't use a range bag as a carry on, you might get "volunteered" for a trip through the puffer and have to answer be searched rather completely by the Thousands Standing Around.

Unless you are a college student is it really that expensive to have two packs, one of the range, and one for traveling?
 
PPGMD, certainly not, I've already picked up a new bag on the advice of all you from the THR. Thanks again!
 
This is one of those things that is to easily avoidable. If I were I would just get a new bag for the trip getting a new bag never hurts anyways.
 
Turn the bag inside out, every pocket, fold and seam, and make sure that you don't have any ammunition or spent casings. Provide an extra hour to get to your flight just in case it takes that long to determine that there's no firearms or ammunition present.

Or, use another bag.
 
HRT,

> I am left talking hunting dogs with an attractive young dog handler.
> Needless to say that bag has not travelled, by air, with me since. When travelling I even have a couple of pairs of shoes that have never been to the range that I use.

Let me get this straight: you're now taking steps to ensure that you won't get any opportunities to talk to attractive young ladies in your future travels? :p

I have one of those geek jackets with about a hundred pockets, and it goes everywhere with me: to work, to the gun range, and when I travel. It's a wearable carry-on, for all practical purposes. The MP3 player, headset, phone and such are already in their storage compartments when I get into the security line. While I'm moving to the front of the line I put all of my coinage and any other metal stuff in a spare pocket, then take off the jacket and put it through the X-ray machine while I stroll through the metal detector. So far I've managed to avoid the slings and arrows of the explosives detectors, but if they come attached to lovely young ladies who like hunting dogs I might have to change my ways! :D
 
Old Cowhand;
If I could count on attractive young dog handlers I would continue. Its just that her reinforcements did not seem to be the type I would like to have any more conversation with than Bon giorno. ;);):D
 
yeah, screw around and get a live .22 round stuck in the treads of your shoe... ask me how i know...
 
Turn the bag inside out, every pocket, fold and seam, and make sure that you don't have any ammunition or spent casings. Provide an extra hour to get to your flight just in case it takes that long to determine that there's no firearms or ammunition present.
Click to expand...

My experience was completely different. Thousands Standing Around? Sounds about right. I have a Camelbak Talon that is my school/range/geocaching/carry-on bag. That thing has pockets for days. February of this year, I flew from Killeen to El Paso to report for Army Reserve Annual Training. Got all the way through security, got hassled for not having a tube of neosporin and my shaving cream out and ready for inspection. Received the mandatory lecture and clear zip-lock bag to carry my fluids. Once I got to Fort Bliss, I was digging in my bag and what did I find? To my amazement and embarrassment, there was a 20-round box of hand-loaded .243 my dad gave me when I was home last summer.

I urinate on TSA from a considerable height.
 
You guys are way overly paranoid about this. I had a backpack/duffle bags
I used both civilian and deployed which I've shot off of and never had a
problem while travelling. I'm not even going to guess what kind of non-organic
cr@p my boots have stepped on.

It's not like you guys were just on the quad 50s (a la Waterworld), so don't
be afraid to say "Swab it! Swab it!"
 
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