Yet another TSA misadventure

Low_rez said:
The TSA have no clue. Unless they see a titanium pen they would like in their pocket. I carry as little as possible in my pockets on any flight. Wallet, phone, ticket. I put any TSA friendly items in my carry on so they will need to see it on the X-ray to question it. In your situation I would have had him call his supervisor/boss to confirm the "weapon" and tell him ANY pen can be used as a weapon. If he said it was dangerous because of the point, I would unscrew the tip and put it in his hand and ask "What now makes this dangerous?"
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best tip so far (pun intended)
 
jalcon said:
Go stick it in the soil of some plant in the airport...it'll be there when you get back...LOL
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My old boss tried that with a Benchmade...it was gone when he returned:(. I've heard stories that they periodically sweep those areas with metal detectors at some airports.

~Chip
 
Ah that sucks.

I've carried a Karas Kustoms pen around for the last year or so and no-one at TSA has given it a second look.

I once had a foreign airport security service demand I give up a carabiner. They wanted my compass too, but I negotiated down to just the one carabiner. lol, fun times...
 
Gotta be realistic here, anything with with a clear tactical purpose will probably be confiscated. Knives, pens, aggressively bezeled flashlights, etc. For this instance, I think the TSA was right in taking the pen. It sucks, but we have to be realistic here. I looked up the pen in reference here, it is quite clearly meant for tactical purposes.

If in doubt, look at it from the other perspective. If you were in control of a company that took people's lives into their hands and flew them in multi-million dollar vehicles over thousands of miles, would you take the chance of a single person with a tactical pen?

....the correct answer is no, obviously. If you (I am using "you" as a general term, not referencing any individual) disagree, feel free to walk to your destination with your tactical gear instead.
 
Cutlover said:
Gotta be realistic here, anything with with a clear tactical purpose will probably be confiscated. Knives, pens, aggressively bezeled flashlights, etc. For this instance, I think the TSA was right in taking the pen. It sucks, but we have to be realistic here. I looked up the pen in reference here, it is quite clearly meant for tactical purposes.

If in doubt, look at it from the other perspective. If you were in control of a company that took people's lives into their hands and flew them in multi-million dollar vehicles over thousands of miles, would you take the chance of a single person with a tactical pen?

....the correct answer is no, obviously. If you (I am using "you" as a general term, not referencing any individual) disagree, feel free to walk to your destination with your tactical gear instead.
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In person it's a very small pen. I've never thought if it as even slightly "tactical", but eye of the beholder and all that.

My expectations had just been set by it being let through many times in the past.
 
I have a hard time saying "tactical pen" with a straight face. It is a pen, it was designed for writing. Do you use it to write down your tactics?

I like cool pens. I like EDC gear. I realize you can hurt somebody with one of these. I still cannot take the term "tactical pen" seriously.

I like clipless Space Pens. They are easy to carry. :)
 
Cutlover said:
Gotta be realistic here, anything with with a clear tactical purpose will probably be confiscated. Knives, pens, aggressively bezeled flashlights, etc. For this instance, I think the TSA was right in taking the pen. It sucks, but we have to be realistic here. I looked up the pen in reference here, it is quite clearly meant for tactical purposes.

If in doubt, look at it from the other perspective. If you were in control of a company that took people's lives into their hands and flew them in multi-million dollar vehicles over thousands of miles, would you take the chance of a single person with a tactical pen?

....the correct answer is no, obviously. If you (I am using "you" as a general term, not referencing any individual) disagree, feel free to walk to your destination with your tactical gear instead.
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What about the shoe laces they didn't take? Could be used to strangle someone... sharpened pencils and Bic pens are allowed and both could easily kill someone. Bare hands can beat someone to death, do they have boxers and people with training wear cuffs to be safe?

You brought up being "realistic", realistically ANY item is a weapon. An aluminum tube won't break into the cockpit of a plane and is no more dangerous than a sharp No.2 pencil.
 
I've carried Minimags and other small flashlights without issue on many flights. A 6" long flashlight makes a dandy kubotan (which is why I stopped carrying tactical pens); I always carry either a Thrunite TN12 or TC12 tactical flashlight.

Another innocuous option is a magic marker. Sharpie makes a Professional permanent marker which is quite solid, the right length for a kubotan, and even has rubberized sides to improve grip. Any box home improvement store should carry them, for about $5.
 
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bearfacedkiller said:
I have a hard time saying "tactical pen" with a straight face. It is a pen, it was designed for writing. Do you use it to write down your tactics?

I like cool pens. I like EDC gear. I realize you can hurt somebody with one of these. I still cannot take the term "tactical pen" seriously.

I like clipless Space Pens. They are easy to carry. :)
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Ding ding ding. For me, "tactical pens" are a joke and a marketing ploy to get your $$$. If you want a last-ditch improvised tool that can poke things, you can get a box of like 30 hard plastic pens for $5, remove plastic cap, and have fun stabbing things. If you want to go a little more elegant and have a stronger body to the pen, get a stainless Fisher or Parker pen, I have a nice stainless Parker that cost about $10. It writes VERY nicely, and serves as a strong improvised last-ditch tool for stabbing things, approximately as effective as any "tactical pen" and it'll never get confiscated.

To the OP: totally agree on the annoyance of TSA confiscating things, and constantly flipping their policies or being inconsistent. I've gone through similar more than once, even being quite diligent to review their list of contraband ahead of time and putting everything in checked baggage. I've still had occasional problems. Feel you pain on that one.
 
maximus83 said:
Ding ding ding. For me, "tactical pens" are a joke and a marketing ploy to get your $$$.
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Agreed. The whole "tactical pen" idea is incredibly dumb. Good to know the TSA has fallen for the marketing nonsense. :rolleyes:

As pens, though, they sometimes satisfy style requirements. Getting carbon fiber or titanium pens to match your other pocket jewelry can be fun. If that's how you roll.* :)

* I roll that way sometimes.
 
One of my closest friend has been a TSA agent for years and he tells me it always depends on the particular agent you are dealing with.
Believe it or not, most of them actually do research on objects that are 'worth' confiscating.
Ridiculousness abounds.
Joe
 
bearfacedkiller said:
I brought a knife with me to the airport by accident once. I got to TSA and remembered before even getting up to the front of the line. Many airports have a post office in them. I just went to the post office and mailed it home. It took five minutes and cost 6 bucks. Next time look into that.

They cannot take your pen. You have to surrender it in order to proceed. You always have the option to go to your car or something. I had been dropped off so I was stranded and that was not an option. I also was not checking a bag. It just so happens that I saw the post office on the way in and luckily that option popped into my head.

I realize this advise is too late but hopefully it will help someone else.
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Yup. One time I won the doofus of the year award. I was on a 5:00AM flight and was too tired to pack the night before. I woke up at the ass-crack of dawn and packed my carryon bag. A black bag... that I had used a few days earlier to carry gear in a shooting competition... and still had a fully loaded black pistol magazine laying flat in the bottom of the bag, which was also black so I didn't see it.
Well, the TSA guys DID see it on their X-ray, imagine that. They took the ammo, and I walked the magazine to the post office in the airport and mailed it home.
It cost about $7 if I recall, but hey, it was better than losing a 1911 Chip McCormack powermag...
 
Not that I agree to what the TSA did in this case but the TSA got ask: what is the intention of having a tactical pen on a flight? If it is for writing, can't a Bic pen serve that purpose?

Someone else above questioned why TSA dont confiscate shoe laces and human hands because they can be also used as weapons, deadly. Well, shoes got be tied and thats the intended use of shoe laces, and nothing else can replace them for that purpose. Human hands? everyone knows what they are for, in addition to do bad things with.

The term "tactical pen" sounds stupid to me. If it were described simply as a normal pen with upgraded metal materials, it would be more acceptable to LEOs. But then again, they would probably not sell well.
 
Been taking my extreme duty back and forth from Ecuador and panama for some time. I just disassembled it and spread it out among four bags between me and the wife. Get on the plane I assemble it and can do my paper work in the air.
 
sharp_edge said:
Not that I agree to what the TSA did in this case but the TSA got ask: what is the intention of having a tactical pen on a flight? If it is for writing, can't a Bic pen serve that purpose?

Someone else above questioned why TSA dont confiscate shoe laces and human hands because they can be also used as weapons, deadly. Well, shoes got be tied and thats the intended use of shoe laces, and nothing else can replace them for that purpose. Human hands? everyone knows what they are for, in addition to do bad things with.

The term "tactical pen" sounds stupid to me. If it were described simply as a normal pen with upgraded metal materials, it would be more acceptable to LEOs. But then again, they would probably not sell well.
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The intended purpose of a pen is to write. Adding tactical to its name does absolutely nothing. Tactical underwear, tactical hands, tactical shoe laces, tactical pen. So the addition of the word tactical should be a red flag to stop all of these things from going on a plane? I'd like to see them get my tactical undies! Will they get them? That depends!
 
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