Weapons smuggling

TSA agents find record number of guns at airport screenings

Transportation Safety Agency officials seized a record number of firearms at the nations airports last year and most of them were loaded.

In its 2106 year in review, the TSA outlined the number of weapons – and other banned items – agents found at 239 airports as they screened more than 738 million passengers.

Last year, they seized 3,391 firearms, an increase of 28 percent over the 2015, when 2,653 guns were found. Of those taken in 2016, about 83 percent of the weapons were loaded.

Three southern cities top the list where most firearms were found.

At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, agents uncovered the most number of firearms — 198, 87 percent of which were loaded — that passengers carried into screening checkpoints.