![TSA found 70 guns at checkpoints over July 4th weekend](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/200211015557-tsa-uniform-file-super-tease.jpg)
TSA found 70 guns at checkpoints over July 4th weekend
CNN
The number of guns found at airport checkpoints nationwide this year is fast approaching the number caught in all of 2020, officials say, and the uptick is slowing down screening lines as masses of passengers return to air travel.
In the first six months of this year, Transportation Security Administration officers have found almost 3,000 firearms, spokeswoman Sarah Rodriguez told CNN. In 2020, when air travel was depressed, officers found 3,257 firearms. In 2019, officers found 4,432 guns. Over the July Fourth weekend alone, officers caught 70 guns at airport checkpoints, and 62 were loaded, Rodriguez said. Guns weren't the only dangerous items screeners caught: A traveler at the Norfolk airport brought 13 firecrackers, a passenger at O'Hare arrived with brass knuckles and Boise, Idaho, screeners found both a loaded firearm and a hatchet in a man's carry-on, TSA said.![](/newspic/picid-6252001-20250216092711.jpg)
Amid Democrats’ shock and bickering over how much to respond to President Donald Trump is a deeper question rippling through leaders across the Capitol and across the country: How much should they rely on the same institutional and procedural maneuvers they used during the first Trump term, and how much are they willing to wield their own wrecking balls?
![](/newspic/picid-6252001-20250215102651.jpg)
In less than a month in office the Trump administration has simultaneously dismantled foreign aid programs that support fragile democracies abroad and put on leave federal workers who protect US elections at home in a move that current and former officials say abandons decades of American commitments to democracy.
![](/newspic/picid-6252001-20250215092938.jpg)
Sen. Mitch McConnell was a generational force for the Republican Party — using procedural tactics and political will to stymie much of former President Barack Obama’s agenda, hand President Donald Trump key first-term political victories and deliver a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority. Now he’s the odd man out.