T.S.A. Confiscated Record Number of Guns at U.S. Airports in 2022

The Transportation Security Administration intercepted a record number of guns at airport security checkpoints this year, the agency said on Friday, prompting it to increase the maximum fine for firearm violations. The move comes amid surges in air travel and gun sales across the country.

The agency said that it had stopped 6,301 guns — more than 88 percent of which were loaded — from passing beyond security checkpoints. By the end of the year the administration expects to have intercepted about 6,600 guns in carry-on bags, a 10 percent increase over the previous record of 5,972, set in 2021.

Officials increased the maximum fine for a firearms violation by nearly $1,000, to $14,950, “in order to reduce the threat of firearms at checkpoints,” the agency said in a news release.

“When a passenger brings a firearm to the checkpoint, this consumes significant security resources and poses a potential threat to transportation security, in addition to being very costly for the passenger,” the T.S.A. administrator, David Pekoske, said in a statement.

The announcement came about three months after the agency said that it was on pace to break the record once again, as air travel in the United States neared prepandemic levels.

Besides a drop in 2020, when travelers stayed home amid pandemic lockdowns, the number of firearm interceptions by the T.S.A. has steadily increased each year since 2010.

Passengers are allowed to bring guns in checked baggage, so long as the weapons are unloaded and locked in a hard-sided container. Passengers must also declare guns at the check-in counter. But guns are not allowed in carry-on bags at any T.S.A. checkpoint, even if a passenger has a concealed weapon permit.

That distinction may be behind the thousands of mishaps in recent years, some experts say. Travelers may be unfamiliar with the rules for bringing firearms on planes, especially if they have not traveled since the start of the pandemic, said Sheldon H. Jacobson, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an expert on aviation security.

“The majority of people are not doing it with malicious intent,” Dr. Jacobson said. “They’re simply…