<p class="content-excerpt">As of December 16, TSA officers had taken a total of 6,301 guns from passengers at airport security checkpoints</p> <div class="components"> <p>A record number of firearms were seized at airports in the United States in 2022, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said on Saturday.</p> <p>As of December 16, TSA officers had taken a total of 6,301 guns from passengers at airport security checkpoints with 88 percent of those weapons still loaded. The previous record was last year when 5,972 firearms were detected. TSA officials said that they expect to confiscate 6,600 guns by the end of the year, representing a 10 percent increase over 2021.</p> <div class="taboola-wrapper"> <div class=" trc_related_container trc_spotlight_widget trc_elastic trc_elastic_ab_mid-article-thumbnails_abp-mode "></div> </div> <p>"I applaud the work of our Transportation Security Officers who do an excellent job of preventing firearms from getting into the secure area of airports, and onboard aircraft," said TSA Administrator David Pekoske. "Firearms are prohibited in carry-on bags at the checkpoint and onboard aircraft. When a passenger brings a firearm to the checkpoint, this consumes significant security resources and poses a potential threat to transportation security, in addition to being very costly for the passenger."</p> </div>