alt Hacker NewsExactly. The zip gun people are mostly just weird nerds, and not professional assassins. The latter seems to be doing it the old fashioned way which leaves no traces - buy cheap gun, file off serials, throw it in the river after.
Zip guns may get past a metal detector, but not the standard x-ray luggage scan. To the extent it'll make it past the x-ray screeners, it's because they let all kinds of stuff through, because it's a poor way to screen for dangerous things, and they are not high-skill employees, they are relatively cheap labor.
Source: I used to travel every week flying home Friday, cycle clothes out of my travel bags, and be on the road again on Sunday night. I learned to my horror I'd been flying with a pair of scissors for at least 5 weeks - during which, TSA forced me to open a Christmas present for my sister and throw away some hand lotion which was in too big of a bottle.
There's a reason they call it security theater. This is just more of it.
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Same thing happened to me -- had a large vice grip in the duffel bag. Could have killed somebody over the head with it. They looked at their "regulations" and vice grips weren't on it so they let me through. You know who didn't let it through though - I left it in the bag and the Chinese security confiscated it on the way back.
btw don't try that with something that is on their list like ammo, even one bullet. Your life will be ruined.
Back in college I was flying home immediately after the end of the semester for a family reunion. Flew there, attended, then flew back. On the flight back, I got stopped for additional search by TSA. Immediately, I remembered that I had left my lab dissection kit in my backpack which included a razor blade and long, pointed, pick-like tool. But it turns out that neither of those are what got me stopped....I had also forgotten a half full bottle of gatorade. They were however happy to confiscate my dissection kit as well, after I had (stupidly) informed them of it.