Flying with a pistol?

All of the responses saying "if you're legal here and legal there, you'll be fine" are really overlooking a real potential problem. If you are not legal concealing in your connecting city, and your connecting flight gets cancelled causing you to need a place to stay, the airline can make you retrieve your bag for the night. This is possible, so please don't glance over this serious issue. If this happens in the wrong city (like Chicago, NY, etc.), you can end up in some very big trouble.

I don't know how this issue would be handled in Denver, since it is much more gun-friendly than the 2 cities I named above.

ShooterMcGavin said:

All of the responses saying "if you're legal here and legal there, you'll be fine" are really overlooking a real potential problem. If you are not legal concealing in your connecting city, and your connecting flight gets cancelled causing you to need a place to stay, the airline can make you retrieve your bag for the night. This is possible, so please don't glance over this serious issue. If this happens in the wrong city (like Chicago, NY, etc.), you can end up in some very big trouble.

I don't know how this issue would be handled in Denver, since it is much more gun-friendly than the 2 cities I named above.

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Post #8 above.

I don't believe the issue you bring up was glanced over at all. The fact still remains however, that the person is making documented travel to another state that welcomes the persons firearms. (if they are doing everything according to federal law)

Could they get run through the ringer by the state they get stopped in? Of course! Are they likely to to be acquitted with the argument that they were simply passing through the state and were forced to stay until new arrangements for travel could be made? (shrug)

I'm not a lawyer, but I personally would be willing to take the chance....and I have. Keep your guns/mags locked up and unloaded and you go a long way to your own defense, should the unlikely event occur.

For extra care, you could even go so far as to break down your firearms to the extent of a field strip. Let the prosecution have fun with that one.

All of the responses saying "if you're legal here and legal there, you'll be fine" are really overlooking a real potential problem

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Since he stated his travel plans and they did not include a restricted state... then "you'll be fine" is a proper response. However if he had said I have a layover in NJ or NY then I'm sure he would have gotten an earful.

I was on a business trip once to Georgia and my return flight got canceled. They wanted to route me thru NY and I fought tooth and nail to not be on that flight. I wound up taking 2 hops (Detroit & Salt Lake) to get back to Seattle.

Flying with a pistol is pretty easy in our area of the States. I've done it several times. Make sure to read the TSA guidelines, and make sure you have it in the case before you get to the airport, just for the sake of nervous nellies there. Most of the time they won't ask you to demonstrate the firearm is clear- many of them probably wouldn't know how to verify even if you did. They simply ask if it's empty.

I bought a 'hard' case when I first started flying with a pistol, but it wasn't very great. Since then I bought a bunch of night-vision goggle cases at a surplus auction. You have to re-do the foam inside, but they are better than anything except very high-end pistol cases, and comparable to that even.

They are big enough for 2 pistols and accessories, and have eyelets for locks, are gasketed airtight and have tight-fitting fliplocks to close.

I have a bunch of them at my shop in Vancouver, if anyone is in the area or traveling through. Much cheaper than buying the comparable Pelican case new.