Groom and doom: Dinwiddie man leaving for honeymoon caught with loaded handgun in carry-on
RICHMOND — A Dinwiddie man leaving on his honeymoon has been arrested at Richmond International Airport for possessing a loaded handgun in his carry-on suitcase.
According to the Transportation Security Administration, the incident happened Nov. 14 as the unidentified man and his wife were going through an airport checkpoint. A TSA officer scanning the couple’s baggage spotted a .9mm handgun in the man’s suitcase.
There were eight bullets in the gun, including one in the chamber.
TSA notified airport police, who confiscated the handgun and arrested the man. He told police he was unaware the gun was in his suitcase.
The couple was on their way to Hawaii for a honeymoon.
“When you’re packing for a flight, my advice is to make sure that your baggage is empty when you start to pack to ensure that there is nothing prohibited in it,” Chuck Burke, TSA’s federal security director at RIC Airport, said in a statement.
The man was issued a civil summons for carrying a loaded handgun into a security checkpoint. TSA said a typical first offense involves a minimum $4,100 fine that can go as high as $13,669 depending upon the circumstances in which it was discovered.
It was the 18th gun seized in a security checkpoint at RIC Airport this year, TSA said. That matches the total from 2017 and is four ahead of the numbers for 2018 and 2019.
TSA noted there are proper ways to travel with weapons. Guidelines can be found at this link.
You can reach Bill Atkinson at batkinson@progress-index.com. Follow him at @BAtkinson_PI. Follow The Progress-Index on Twitter at @ProgressIndex.
Want to read more stories by The Progress-Index but keep hitting your article limit? Go to progress-index.com and click Subscribe Today at the bottom of the page to get a digital subscription.
Leave a Reply