A word for those who wish to carry knives through BWI Airport, since Baltimore is to the rest of the world as peanuts are to gravy:
I often end up driving to
BWI to pick up a certain E2
noder from the airport - just me, Elwood, his girlfriend, and her
spyderco pocketknife. Our mission: to get safely past security without having to surrender any of our possessions or
bend over and cough.
Q. Why is it such a hassel?
A. Because if you are caught with a knife that is unallowable, you have two options: either leave the airport immediately (under your own power or no), or Throw Your Knife Away! They do NOT hold, or allow you to go back and check items. You can't leave them at a service desk. There are no luggage lockers. So, basically, if you don't get your knife through, you're
SOL.
Here is how to tell if your knife will hack it in
Bawlmer:
1. If the
blade of your knife is longer than 3.5 inches(8.89
centimeters), forget it. The security personnel at BWI carry ruled plastic cards exactly 3.5 inches long, with which they measure the blade of your knife - if the knife is longer than the card, you
do not pass go, do not collect $200.
2. If your knife is
double-bladed, leave it at home - they don't even measure those, they just kick you to the curb.
P.S. Double bladed knives of any length are illegal to carry in Maryland (
everything's a crime in Maryland!), so good luck if you're caught concealing one of these.
3. If your knife is a single-bladed, 3.5" or under in length, go ahead and carry it - provided that you're traveling during the day. If you're going at night, the security is tighter, and you won't get through. (
I know it makes no sense, but that's how they are.)
4. Oddly, they don't care if the blade is
serrated.
5. Don't forget to show security the knife when the mag goes off
Before you tell them that it's just your belt, which is made from a seat belt and very difficult to remove, and to just wand you. Oh, yeah, and don't make this mistake when your ride, who is going
goth clubbing later, is lurking about wearing a black lace sheath, knee high boots, and
wet n'wild 508 lipstick.
Jedi mind tricks, however, have not been tried.
As ZenZagg points out in his (her?) node on this subject, BWI security is, generally speaking, kinda lame. But they're uptight about knives: I guess it's much easier to say "Knife! Bad!" than to actually ponder what could be built out of all that stuff. It's on par with their 'Terrorists only fly at night' theory.
Update: After mulling it over, I've decided to leave the content of my inital write-up for this node intact, although I wanted to delete it after
September 11, 2001, since I figured it would no longer be accurate. However, I'm going to leave it up for now, to remind myself and anybody who comes across it just how lax
airport security used to be, which was really the point of this node all along. But now I have this to say...like it or not, you
can kill someone with just about anything, if you put your mind to it. Although I'm totally in favor of tightening airport security, taking away
everything that might be used to
hijack a plane is pointless, because someone will always be able to think of something new. The only real thing we can do to stop it, is follow
igloowhite's example, and take down anybody foolish enough to try.