Yeah, that’s a piece of cake. And I’m surprised at how many people balk at it. I’ve done it zillons of times at more than 40 airports throughout the U.S… Only had one real problem and that was in San Francisco. Still only took about 5 minutes more to clear it up. Normally it’s under 60 seconds. Declare, fill out the orange card, put it in the case, put the suit case on the TSA belt. Done. Nothing extra to do at the destination. Just pick up your suitcase like normal.
Packing on a plane is wayyyy. Different. Only time I’ve done it was a few times back in the 90’s when I did some prisoner transports. Things have change drastically since then and carrying off duty on a plane requires prior consent from your employer, paperwork, etc…
My eldest is just starting Federal Flight Deck Officer training. Next time I see him, I’ll ask what the rules are when he enters gun-averse countries. As I understand it he’s officially an air marshall while armed and in the cockpit, but not on the ground (but his gun has to stay with him). I’m curious how this works when he’s traveling from airport to hotel, or dead-heading to catch a flight in places like Canada (or even New Jersey).
Said it elsewhere but nope – no issue. Actually, I enjoyed both England and Germany quite a bit and not all my time was spent in the ultra-safe normal tourist kinds of locations.
States here that don’t honor my CCW permit or have some reasonable system for me to acquire one of theirs? That I have issues about.
I can tell you there is no problem in New Jersey. Federal law enforcement always had jurisdiction to carry even in a restrictive state like NJ. H.R 218 made it federal law that no state could make it illegal for any law enforcement officer to be denied the ability to carry as long as they are legally authorized in their local jurisdiction.
I won’t start to guess about foreign countries. I had long conversations with an air Marshall I was deployed with but that was a long time ago and my memory is probably faulty.
Same here, I didn’t own any guns for a long time so it wouldn’t really bother me, too.
Yes I’d be willing to file the paperwork.
Traveling internationally there are times I wish I could be armed. I’d like to visit the Philippines and travel the southern islands there but safety is a concern. I’d feel better if I was armed. Same thing about a possible road trip through Mexico and down into Central America’ I’d feel better if armed.
I carry when and where I can legally carry. I haven’t tried packing a gun in my checked luggage on a domestic flight yet. On a recent trip to California, because my Ohio permit is not valid there, I left my guns at home. My understanding of the permt situation in California is that there is little chance that I will ever be able to legally carry there, but I will continue to visit.
I wouldn’t forgo a visit to a vacation spot because I couldn’t carry a gun.
And just because you can’t carry doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have one in your hotel room for protection. The people at the airport aren’t authorized to decide whether you’re legal to have it or not when you get there.
The only places I’d recommend non-leos not taking a gun to are places like NYC or New Jersey. There it might come up and someone might want to meet you at the airport. Myself I took a pistol to NYC arriving in LaGuardia and had no problems.
I guess gun people feel safe carrying guns all the time. But it would have the opposite effect on me. I would be uneasy being around someone who I knew had a gun on them. I certainly wouldn’t want them in my house.
If there were someone I felt could punch me in the face without notice I wouldn’t want him in my house either. If there were someone who I thought was irrational and would possibly pull his gun out I wouldn’t want him in my house. No one I know on a personal level falls under either category.
Double this. I carry always, but I do so legally. If it’s illegal to carry somewhere, I don’t carry. I like having a means to protect myself, but I don’t work my life around being able to carry.
Nobody seeks out a license to be armed with fists. It’s not really an option.
If I may perhaps offer some explanation beyond “guns are bad” or “guns are good,” I suspect where Living Well is coming from is that to many people in many places, it’s simply bizarre to want to carry a gun all the time. It’s a weird level of preparedness; to me it is analogous to someone who feels they need to wear a beekeeping hat at all times, even if there’s no bees about. Even indoors. I don’t really understand, being who I am and where I am from, why someone would want to carry a gun at all times if they had no professional need to do so (as a former soldier, I have carried firearms when I had a professional need to do so.) So someone saying “I need a gun on me whenever I’m awake” strikes me, on some gut, emotional level, as being indicative of a person being untrustworthy.
I am not saying that is always the case, of course. I concede that people live in different places and situations than I do and perhaps in some places it actually IS rational to carry a gun around even when you’re swimming. I would certainly consider carrying a gun if circumstances were very, very different. However, it’s a concept extremely alien to me and hard to understand - as, I am sure, my attitude is to those who feel the need to arm themselves. I think that’s where people are coming from when they express negative reactions to this sort of thing.
I’ve travelled pretty extensively through Malaysia, driven from Singapore up to Phuket.
On the way back from that trip we took a detour to an Island Resort - about two hours before reaching the ferry there was a “Execution Style Slaying” (someone was shot through a chaffeur driven van).
I would always have thought Malaysia to be more dangerous than mainstream US - but there has NEVER been a situation where I would have felt safer with a gun.
Rather, carrying a gun would simply make me feel like a target. The crowds are such that you would never know who was beside or behind you, and one quick whack with a machete would be all that is needed to take the gun from me.
Hell - you’d be able to grab my kid from beside me before I could even get the gun out.
I must also add, I have never felt nervous of my safety in any of those places.
It might be total cultural disconnect - but I simply cannot wrap my head around the way some feel the NEED to carry a gun.
Say what. I’m imagining a Canadian cop stepping into your RV, and seeing a wall covered in weapons. “Ah, yes. Let me put a trigger lock on this here squad automatic weapon. Don’t even think of taking it off. Ah, a rocket launcher? Haven’t seen one of them in a while. Trigger lock should fix it up in a jiffy. Even if an enemy tank is coming right for you, you don’t have the right to fire it, sir. Ok, all locked up. Keep these padlocks on til you return”
I suspect it’s something that can’t be described or adequately explained.
The best comparison I can come up with is this:
Last year I needed a ride to work. (True story - my car was broken down.) So a coworker picked me up. After I got in his car, he casually mentioned that the seatbelt on the passenger side did not work. He was correct; it wouldn’t retract at all.
I have never been in a vehicle without wearing a seatbelt, and I was terrified during the 30 minute trip. I kept thinking to myself, “Any second now we’re going to get in a wreck, and I’m going to go through the windshield.” It was nerve-wracking. So was I being irrational? Paranoid?
I get a similar feeling when I’m unarmed in public.
I would feel strange in that situation because I’m used to the feeling of a belt across my chest. And I’d be pissed that my coworker thought it was OK to offer to give me a ride in a car with lopsided safety arrangements, not to mention that Ohio requires front seat passengers to be belted. But terrified? The odds of getting into an accident on any one 30 minute trip are pretty darn small. Even so, assuming you’re a white male in the 35-44 range, you’re 10 times more likely to die in some sort of an accident than in a homicide. That doesn’t take into account socioeconomic status or geography, so in reality that number is probably even smaller. Furthermore, there’s no evidence that carrying a handgun is anywhere near as effective at improving your safety than frickin’ seatbelts, which have mounds of evidence to back up their use.
In other words, if you really get a similar feeling of danger walking around unarmed as you do driving around unbelted, that’s irrational.