THE GUN IN THE TEDDY BEAR
Maybe thoroughly screening grannies and toddlers at the airport isn't so pointless after all.Screeners at a passenger checkpoint at the Orlando International Airport last Friday found a loaded handgun hidden inside a stuffed teddy bear belonging to a 10-year-old boy, the Transportation Security Administration has told CNN.
The boy was part of a family of five that had been on vacation in Orlando and was returning home to Ohio, the TSA said.
"The family reported it had been given to the child at a hotel in Orlando two days earlier," TSA spokesman Robert Johnson said.
The .22-caliber Derringer, according to another TSA official, was "artfully hidden" inside the bear.
Screeners became suspicious after the teddy bear was x-rayed, and a small hole was found on the bottom of the stuffed toy, the official said.
Johnson said the FBI is examining who gave the child the bear and why.
Hmmm. It doesn't make much sense for a terrorist, smuggler, whatever to secretly put a gun in someone else's hands unless he has a reasonable chance of recovering it later. Which makes me think either someone in the kid's family put it there to get it through security, or, just possibly, the whole thing is a set-up to "prove" Underperformin' Norman Mineta "knows" what's he's doing.