Transportation Security Administration takes nail trimmers from armed United States of America soldier

Soldiers returning home from Afghanistan have given the media yet one more chance to poke at Transportation Security Administration, reports Red State. The gear the soldiers brought had already been inspected and approved by U.S. Customs, but Transportation Security Administration felt the have to completely empty the flight and thoroughly inspect the gun-toting soldiers (minus ammo). They found nail trimmers in the bag of one soldier – mission accomplished, TSA. Resource for this article – TSA confiscates nail clippers from gun-toting soldier by Personal Money Store.

Is it worse to have an M4 carbine rifle or nail clippers?

The M4 carbine rifle the soldier had been carrying had been much more threatening than the tiny nail clipper confiscated by the TSA, although they were following rules. There might not are any ammo in the gun but a highly trained soldier would not need any ammo to do harm. Tiny nail clippers would be hard to maneuver. Such as it is, this incident is yet one more opportunity for the media to have a field day with TSA, an organization that has been within the news quite a bit lately for full body scanners, groping pat downs and the people who are fed up with it all. Now there’s even a Twitter-based contest called #touchedbytsa, where the prize is an iPod Touch.

TSA nail clippers facts

Indianapolis was where the plane landed. Airport security took the 330 passengers into a holding area, Red State reports. Firearms like the M4 carbines, M9 pistols and M-240B machine guns were carried by at least 100 soldiers on the flight. U.S. Customs had cleared and secured all the ammo when none of the weapons were loaded. Customs had already screened the baggage although TSA still wanted the soldiers to all unpack their baggage piece-by-piece.

The soldiers all had their luggage sniffed for an hour by bomb-sniffing dogs reports Red State. It had been hours of the soldiers just sitting there. TSA found the nail clippers after inspecting them again. The nail clippers weren't shown the TSA before this. So far as Red State and other media sources can tell, this was a thinly disguised TSA power trip. The nail clippers were possibly just a bonus for them, sources suggest.

Citations

Red State

redstate.com/erick/2010/11/18/another-tsa-outrage/

The true danger of nail clippers

youtube.com/watch?v=aZw3qpnaK3o