 What are we talking about today? What is this weird topic? Well, as often happens, it's me trying to inject physical security, high locks, you know, real extreme locks into places in your life that you didn't think you could have them. I really, really enjoyed doing this. I enjoyed talking at cons about all kind of security issues. I enjoyed so much. It's kind of become my job. I go to a lot of cons, like a lot of cons. And unfortunately, I really can't drive to these places. I like to just throw gear in my truck and roll out. I'm not as crazy as Babak who drove here with all the lockpick village gear from Iowa. You know, I get on a plane. And even though I don't like flying, I've gotten good at flying and it's just what I do. It's what we all have to do. If you have jobs that cake you all over the country and all over the globe. I used to get my bags open all the time. You know, we've been through this. I used to have my bags open sometimes that wasn't the TSA doing it. I've had to fill out police reports for theft and items that were just ripped off. And it sucks. One time I got all my picks and all my locks and stuff stolen right before Torcon and I could barely go on. And that was the one trip where I was like, all right, fuck this. There's got to be a better way. There's got to be a way I can lock things up properly under the law. And it turns out there is. I now in fact lock all of my luggage with heavy duty major, major padlocks. They're Abloy Protect Puck padlocks. You can ask us in the village why they're so badass. People are often surprised by that. They're like, wait, you can't, you know, those aren't little wimpy TSA locks. Those are big, suckin' crazy padlocks. Like how is this legal? Well, it's really simple how these heavy duty padlocks are legal. It's legal because I'm flying with firearms all the time now. I never fly on a plane without firearms in every single bag I'm checking. And the reason is that if you're flying with, well, first of all, we still live in something of a free country. So you can just, you're allowed to fly with your guns state to state. You know, like, why not? It's part of your rights as a citizen. So of course that's all the reason you need. It feels good, so do it. But the follow-up is that not only is it of good feeling and a sense of liberty, you are not just allowed, you are in fact required to lock your bags with non-TSA approved, only you get the key, locks. Fully, if you have firearms. This is a wonderful way to work the system to your favor. If you're traveling with tons of yogis and EPCs and God knows whatever fucking crazy gear to get to a client site, you know it's going to be, how many of you are the people who cram so much shit into like the carry on and you're like, alright, it's going to all be, I hope I can just get this through. I don't want to check bags. Like, that sucks. You don't have to do that anymore. Flying with firearms is really easy to do and I'm going to tell you how. Really fast. So, quick facts. First of all, this is a federal standard. It is defined and enforced by the TSA. It is their policy. It goes, you know, your guns go in a checked bag. The airlines can make their own little spin on it, but as long as you have unloaded guns in the checked bag, the TSA regulates how this is done. And they even will tell you it is not a lock that they can open. That has to be a lock that only you have access to. You declare it to the airport and the process could not be simpler. A couple of additional specifics. Has to be a hard bag. Not any type of soft side or even semi-soft. I've seen like a bag that was hard on multiple sides and then like a soft lid. That doesn't count. Hard sided only case. You can put a hard case inside of a soft bag. I'll tell you later why that's a really bad idea. AMO. AMO is legal to transport. I didn't have any AMO in this case today. Those of us who were at the shoot Thursday morning, you know we had plenty of it. I flew with a ton of it this time. Absolutely legal. Policies get a little more wonky with different airlines. When they put their own little spin on things, some airlines do really dumb stuff. The real big deal though is once your bags have been properly secured and they're verified you are flying with firearms, you're checked in, you're declared, no one is allowed to open your bags if you're not standing right there. Airport staff can't do it. Baggage staff is not allowed. The TSA is not allowed to open your bags if they have firearms in them. They have to try to get you first. The process is all geared to getting the TSA screening done with you there so that you can witness your firearms are safe and your bag goes safely on the way. They're not allowed to mark the outside of it either. Something a lot of airlines used to get wrong. They're getting better at it. They're not even allowed to tag the outside or treat it as a different type of bag. What should you actually expect when you do this? Well, like any other passenger, you show up like every other passenger at the airport. You're a regular traveler. You say, all right, I'm flying with this many suitcases today. I've got this luggage. It weighs this much. You can't get around the weight requirement really. You get a little bit. One thing you do different is you say, by the way, I'm going to need some firearms declarations. I'm flying with X number of guns today. This was a typical day for me. You fill these out. You say, yes, I'm declaring firearms. They are unloaded. They will often want to see right there at airline check-in what you're carrying and make sure that it's unloaded. Sometimes they don't know which end is up, but they'll, all right, you racked a slide. You made some clicky noises. All right, it must be unloaded. Other times, I've had real experienced people like Clear and Lock and, all right, is that indicator there? Okay, fine. You put the little sign tag, which they will also mark with your flight info in the case. You lock the case, and usually you immediately proceed to a TSA screening area. Have you ever walked through an airport and seen not like deep in the bowels of the airport somewhere? There's like TSA stations right out in the check-in hall, and they're usually kind of standing around not doing much. That's for special baggage. The guy with like the surfboard or the live dog in the carrier. Special baggage or oversized baggage sometimes. That's usually where you go. It's a screening area often staffed by more veteran officers who are better at dealing with the public and get the cushy job of sitting around more. And they'll immediately screen your bag. They'll do it, you know, wrap a scan. They might do a swab test. If anything pops, they'll say, oh, excuse me, we had an alert. Can you, please, we have to do a hand scan. Usually you're right, like, right there or behind a little rope watching the hand scan. They'll say, all right, yeah, this was, all right, I don't know, this was a bottle of something and this was a corkscrew. All right, Miss, can you lock this up again, please? You come over, you lock it. Thank you for your time. From that point, your bag can hop through the airport system no matter how many connections or lost things happen. Whatever happens, your bag is never unlocked. Again, it's declared clear at that point and stays locked. A few extra pointers that'll make it even easier on you. Obviously, come on, don't be a dumbass when you declare, like, oh, I'd like the window seat and boy, it sure is a nice day. I've got a gun. You're in a fucking airport. You say, excuse me, I really could use some firearms declarations. I need these. I'm flying with firearms today. You guys are smart enough about that. When I say keep your cases locked as much as possible, I mean, when you show up, they are already locked, which you should be unless you have a valid carry permit in your state. You have to be transporting your weapons unlocked, sorry, locked and unloaded. But even in the airport, you're putting them down on the, it should be locked. All right, you've got to go over here now, sir. Keep it locked at that point. It's better to be asked a bunch of times, oh, we needed to put this form, oh, wait, I need to get in there. It's better to do that than to have some baggage handler, which happened to me once. Like, I wasn't looking, oh, is this man clear? Like, they threw it on a belt and my gun case was rowing away down the side of the airport. I was like, oh, wait, get that back. You'll, you know, you don't want it to like slip through those little rubber curtains and then they're trying to call some guy on a phone and you're like, all right, who just took my 45? Keep it locked. Getting to that secondary area, it's likely to be nearby. You can't guarantee it's going to be really nearby. If you shelled out whatever the ass rape price is for your little smart cart, don't surrender it to the next guy who's like, hey, are you done with that? Because I got all these fucking bags. Keep your cart. You're like, no, I'm sorry, I'm traveling with this steel. I got to get it over here. I still need this. And remember, the outside indicators are not allowed. Even though you may have seen some of those little orange declaration tags look like tags. They have string on them. They're not for that purpose. They don't go on the outside of the bag. That is federal law. You'll see some things pop up on your bags once in a while and you're like, oh, what is this? Is this a firearm tag? No, this is just heavy bag indicator. Sometimes the TSA will sticker your actual baggage tag. It's nothing to do with firearms. This is the TSA has cleared this sticker. It used to be really hard to, like these were hard to clone. They were really secure. And I was going to say, oh, this is nice. You could make your own talk about what they do now, like the orange Kinko sticker. Sometimes they just write TSA on it. That's a cleared bag at this point. Make your own talk about that. Other countries don't have our laws. Other countries will tag your bag sometimes. Nothing you can do. Other things about traveling to other countries. First of all, is it hard? No. If you're following the law, people are like, oh man, isn't that hard with customs and shit? No. The people at customs and the people at border control are mean and they're angry, but their whole existence is to know the law. If you're following the law, they're not going to give you trouble. The person who's going to give you trouble is the airline counter-worker who's, you know, country outlawed guns 20 years ago under communism and he's like, what? I don't understand. Citizens with firearms, blah. And he won't know how to deal with it. Maybe the international wing of the airport won't have that secondary area because they're not set up for it. I've had my bags just sent away locked and they say, all right, we'll call you at the gate if we have to get in these. One last tip. It has nothing to do with guns. If you are tired of having the TSA take your pliers and everything else and you're always worried, it's a real peace of mind for me to throw a prepaid or pre-stamped like flat-rate envelope in my bag. It's really easy to stuff the banned item like in a mail slot. It's really hard like dicking around with envelopes and stuff. It's my little tip to you. Think about it. It saves your ass. It saved mine plenty of times. If you ever run into trouble doing this, just you guys know this from, you know, like your SE-ing type of activities. Properly present yourself, state your case, know the rules. There is a sheet that I actually always carry with me. I've laminated some. I just keep all the rules pertinent to this all on one page and say, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. This is the rules. You are wrong. Supervisor, please. You can download that sheet online if you want. Just stand your ground. You're not doing anything wrong. You are an armed citizen, yes, but you have that freedom. Have the courage to just stand up and say, no, I don't think you are doing this correctly. I would like a supervisor over here. It's a lot of peace of mind. It's even a peace of mind in a different way for lost luggage. No one wants to be this person. It sucks being this person. Who has ever had a misrouted bag? Right. Now, how many of you got the bag eventually? That's most of those hands. The airlines mishandle about 1-2% of the bags they travel with every day. They get back all except 1-2% of those bags. But now it's a real mess. The chain of custody is really broken. It's been in some basement office. It's been thrown into some courier service delivering it to the hotel. You had to deal with all the paperwork and it like arrives fast shipment later. If you were flying with firearms this whole time, you know it was still locked. The lock shows up. It's still on there. That's a real big peace of mind for me. It's still not as satisfying as when I arrive at the airport. And of course I let my luggage that you see here arrive. And the white shirt is priceless on that one. That was going to Shaka Khan in Hawaii. Alright. A few last minute tips. We're running short of time. I want to give a couple of minutes for questions if we can. Insurance. Airlines are insured if they mess your shit up and lose it. Your insurance varies, especially with steel involved. It might not be covered. Get your own. You can mess around with the weight a little bit. If you're right on the bubble, how many people are always packing the gear and weighing it at home? You can put like my locks, you can check out later. These weigh like five pounds. You can put that on after you've weighed it, maybe. I actually once had to convince an airline personnel that you're 52 pounds now. And I said, well no, but under federal law this is required, so it's immune from that rule. And they were like, oh okay. Can you put a small hard sided case inside of a larger case? Yes. Don't lock the inner case if you do. You might run into some functionaries saying, oh alright, you've got the lock there so you don't need it here. I don't give them an out. I don't give them any other recourse than to say, well this outside has to be locked. The big question and the reason for all our security stuff earlier that I like to talk about is that you don't have to use lethal firearms to do this. We got five, right? Let's say you're not in a gun friendly state. Let's say you're not a gun person. You can get out. Or, you know, please you're not needed here. No, come on, it's just not some people's cup of tea. If it's not, or if you don't want to worry about that hassle, this, and we've verified these are all non-lethal, this is a flare gun. It looks really scary. It's blued steel. I would tell people, oh it's a single shot, 12 gauge if they question it. That's a flare gun. And it is a single shot, 12 gauge. Don't put a deer slug in it, you'll blow your hand apart. Yeah, that expels a projectile by means of a combustible propellant. If you're ever doing any theater or stage work, have you ever worked with, you know, blank firing firearms? Absolutely, it's still a firearm. If you stick up the local quickie mart with that, they're not going to slap your charge back to a misdemeanor because you were brandishing a non-lethal object. That is a firearms charge. Federally, it is a firearm. Same thing. Again, just any type of replica weapon you can have. You can play with these later, you can look at them. Legal in all 50 states. Absolutely, you can use any of these things. Other stuff, airsoft, replica gun like that. I would not say it's a real, it wouldn't count under the law. If you try to travel with it, I'd say you better declare it in case someone gets squirrely on you, but don't expect to leverage the law in your favor. I have sound clips of phone calls on my website talking to the TSA confirming this. How do the different carriers rate? This is really important. Not every carrier is the same. These are sort of like letter grades that over time I've assigned to different carriers. Why? Well, check out my website. You will see a breakdown of how every carrier's rules are a little unique. I didn't summarize the federal standard every time. I said, how does this carrier augment their rules way beyond the federal standard? Sometimes it's how much ammo you can have, whether it's in the same case or a different case. Most of these are rules geared towards just milking you for more luggage fees. Learn about which carriers are which. If you want to read actual air travel accounts of people who have flown, they're on the web. I post all of them. If you fly, please, I'd love to have your account of how you were treated by the airline, by TSA. There's a real short, like, 12-question questionnaire. Read it through, get your head and take some notes and send it in to me. I want to know how it went for you. If you want to know something about it, you can skip ahead sometimes. I don't like to be like, don't be a dick. You will be amazed if you grab a skycap at the curb, how you can slide on by and get to check in first. Again, don't use this as leverage to try to check in first. Don't account on it, but it happens. Very lastly, what are the best padlocks out there? What do I like to recommend? Well, I don't sell them personally. All of these are well within most people's budget. You'll see some people selling them around the con. Also, within your budget, what do you use for luggage? Well, this big, crazy steel case you see I'm using, it's a mortar round case that I slapped a hasp on the end of it. For $30, I have complete ironclad security for my luggage. Any one of you can do this. Thank you. I'll take a minute or two for questions. Thank you. We'll do a quick one, two, and three. Yes, sir. Do we have a minute, actually? I don't want to screw you up. Fast. Flying into Washington, D.C., no one flies into Washington, D.C. Both airports are in Virginia. Also, the airport where you land doesn't know that's where you are staying. You can fly into LAX and be like, I'm meeting my friends for DEF CON. I'm driving right from here. The safe passage provision of the Firearm Owners Protection Act allows you to travel through an ungun friendly state if your firearms are properly cased and unloaded. If you're from the south and you need to get to New England, you have to drive through New York. You can take your M4 through New York, if you file the Fed form because that's an NFA weapon, but you can drive through New York with your AR-15 if it's closed and locked up, no ammo in it. You can absolutely do that. The airport does not care where you are going. They care that you are complying with the standard. Does that answer it? All right. Yes, sir. You were next. I see it. Lockpicks, the question about legal, yeah. Check luggage, yes. They're also cool on the airplane as well. They're not a banned item, but go on. The jack knife pick set. Well, again, anything that looks scary is going to get you some odd looks at the TSA screening area. Ask us in the village. We have a whole spiel about it in the village. We'll talk about it up there. There was a hand? Yes, miss. I don't recommend a hard case inside of a soft piece of luggage because every single firearm theft registered that I'm aware of in the airport system has happened because of that. Baggage handlers steal shit that they can shove into a gym bag or cargo pants pocket that they have in their work area. If you have a small case inside of an easily opened or easily ripped open, larger case, that is asking for trouble. I've seen foul ups where a screening went awry and friends have actually had their small case wind up coming out of the luggage belt by itself. Like, that's fucking scary. So, yeah, that's why. The worst airports, by the way, for theft, just to go home with a nightmare, LAX, ORD, Seattle to coma, Miami, those are probably the worst. ORD was really bad for a while with gun thefts in the small cases. I live near Philly, so PHL and Newark are also not a picnic. But just email me. Thank you for letting me blab an extra second. Thank you again. Tell me if it goes well for you.