# American tourists in Israel find live ordnance and try to carry it through airport security as a souvenir **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 29, 2022, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-tourists-in-israel-find-live-ordnance-and-try-to-carry-it-through-airport-security-as-a-souvenir/963672 "2022-04-29T12:57:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-tourists-in-israel-find-live-ordnance-and-try-to-carry-it-through-airport-security-as-a-souvenir/963672/21 "2022-04-29T18:07:09Z")
Maybe 37mm. That was a popular Soviet anti-aircraft caliber (same functional slot as a Bofors 40mm in the West). But I can’t tell if that looks like an AA round or what. If only they had included a banana for scale in that picture. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-tourists-in-israel-find-live-ordnance-and-try-to-carry-it-through-airport-security-as-a-souvenir/963672/22 "2022-04-29T18:33:29Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Was it really live, though? Live or not, TSA does not allow ammunition aboard aircraft, and I suspect the same is true in Israel. Security personnel do not want to be tasked with figuring out whether a round is live or not; the simplest, safest thing is just to say “no ammunition of any kind”. Some years ago I received a gift of a 30mm round. It was inert, a replica made for testing the autofeed mechanism. Replica ammunition is also not allowed on planes, so I shipped it home via USPS. Turns out I didn’t **[follow the rules there either](https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c4_011.htm)**, because I didn’t present it at the counter, didn’t send it via registered mail, and I didn’t write “REPLICA AMMUNITION” on the outside of the box. Oops. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-tourists-in-israel-find-live-ordnance-and-try-to-carry-it-through-airport-security-as-a-souvenir/963672/23 "2022-04-29T23:28:21Z")
From the OP’s article, I found this interesting— > The airports authority said the family was allowed to board their flight after an interrogation by security staff, who declared an all-clear. I don’t know much about Israeli procedures, but I genuinely can’t help wondering if a non-American family would be treated that way. Does anybody have any good idea? ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2022, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-tourists-in-israel-find-live-ordnance-and-try-to-carry-it-through-airport-security-as-a-souvenir/963672/24 "2022-04-30T00:20:53Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > To be very clear, that’s how many TSA _recovered_, which doesn’t necessarily have any relation to how many made it on to planes that shouldn’t have. There’s been studies showing that (depending on what you read) anywhere between 70 and 95% of guns make their way right past security. In this 2015 test, they failed [95%](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/investigation-breaches-us-airports-allowed-weapons-through-n367851) > [@Bootb](#): > > From the OP’s article, I found this interesting— > > > The airports authority said the family was allowed to board their flight after an interrogation by security staff, who declared an all-clear. > > I don’t know much about Israeli procedures, but I genuinely can’t help wondering if a non-American family would be treated that way. Does anybody have any good idea? When you have idjits like that trying to leave your country, sometimes the best course of action is to let them leave your country. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2022, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-tourists-in-israel-find-live-ordnance-and-try-to-carry-it-through-airport-security-as-a-souvenir/963672/25 "2022-04-30T00:52:32Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > ’ve been to that airport - it’s the scariest airport in the world, with multiple security checkpoints and intense interrogation at the door, in the queue, at the check-in desk, at the doors before security. I wouldn’t try and smuggle so much as a mars bar. Yes. They grilled me because I hadn’t completely filled out my (entirely voluntary, just-for-fun) scuba diary. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2022, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-tourists-in-israel-find-live-ordnance-and-try-to-carry-it-through-airport-security-as-a-souvenir/963672/26 "2022-04-30T08:14:38Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > I don’t know much about Israeli procedures, but I genuinely can’t help wondering if a non-American family would be treated that way. Does anybody have any good idea? I’m sure that their bags were checked carefully to make sure they weren’t also accidentally smuggling, say, a Claymore mine, but the fact that they presented teh shell to security and asked if they could take it abroad seems to have convinced them that they weren’t malicious, merely stupid. The security authorities probably decided that there was no point in keeping them around, and that punishing them for an obvious mistake would serve no purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2022, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-tourists-in-israel-find-live-ordnance-and-try-to-carry-it-through-airport-security-as-a-souvenir/963672/27 "2022-04-30T08:56:58Z")
In this context, the punishment probably would have been “immediate removal from the country,” and since they were going that way anyway, well… ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2022, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-tourists-in-israel-find-live-ordnance-and-try-to-carry-it-through-airport-security-as-a-souvenir/963672/28 "2022-04-30T10:27:45Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > When you have idjits like that trying to leave your country, sometimes the best course of action is to let them leave your country. Yeah, Brother Louie (an English prof at my university) used to hitchhike around the west in the summer (I’m assuming not in his OSB robes). He said he could get across Montana pretty quickly because deputies would pick him, drive him over to the next county with a either implicit or explicit “don’t come back to my county”. Generally the next county guys would find him shortly (don’t know if they got a head’s up or not), rinse and repeat. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-tourists-in-israel-find-live-ordnance-and-try-to-carry-it-through-airport-security-as-a-souvenir/963672.md?page=1)