Guns are still showing up at airport

Jace Radke

Monday, Dec. 17, 2001 | 9:38 a.m.

Bringing a gun to an airport was a bad idea before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but now it's just crazy, Clark County Aviation Director Randy Walker said.

"Unless you have been living in a cave, you should know not to bring a gun to an airport," Walker said. "I have to think that anyone who would bring a gun to an airport has a mental problem."

Last week, in unrelated incidents, Metro Police arrested three men who tried to pass through McCarran International Airport's beefed-up security checkpoints, each carrying a gun in their carry-on baggage.

All three men face gross misdemeanor charges of carrying a concealed weapon, police said.

Although Walker said he couldn't imagine what the three men were thinking, he said that people trying to pass through checkpoints with weapons is more common than one would think.

"We had people doing it before Sept. 11 and we have people doing it now," Walker said. "It is pretty unusual to have three guns in seven days. It's not uncommon for our monthly security reports to show a gun or two a month."

Guns are some of the tamer weapons that Walker has seen passengers try to get past security screeners.

"It's amazing what people try to get through in their bags," Walker said. "We've had meat cleavers, swords, brass knuckles, axes and even a chain saw one time."

The guns found last week were all discovered in carry-on bags at the airport's security checkpoints.

Screeners found a 9 mm pistol in Reginald E. Mueller's briefcase about 4:15 a.m. Friday morning, police said. Mueller, 60, a resident of Loma Linda, Calif., was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles.

John Goobie, 69, was arrested Tuesday morning by Metro Police, and John Charles Goodell, 50, was arrested Dec. 10.

Goobie, a North Las Vegan who was planning to fly to San Jose, Calif., had a .25-caliber handgun in his carry-on bag as he tried to pass through a checkpoint about 11:30 a.m., police said.

Goodell, a resident of Pismo Beach, Calif., was arrested at a checkpoint about 7:50 a.m. when screeners detected a handgun inside a leather case, police said.

Goodell would have carried the gun, a .25-caliber Derringer-style weapon, onto a flight bound for Los Angeles, police said.

A first offense of carrying a concealed weapon is a misdemeanor, and any subsequent offense is a felony.

Police said none of the three men had concealed weapons permits, but even if they had, it still would have been a misdemeanor to bring the guns into the airport. Under state law it's a misdemeanor for a someone with a concealed weapons permit to carry the weapon in a public building at a public airport.

At least two of the three said they forgot they had the weapon in their bags.

Most people waiting in line at the C Gate security checkpoint Sunday at McCarran International Airport said they ran a mental checklist before packing their carry-on baggage to make sure they didn't bring any contraband. They couldn't believe someone would try to bring a gun onto a plane.

"Where have they been?" said Terri Mott, who was flying back to Arizona. "With everything that has happened? I usually don't carry anything on except for my makeup bag, and I don't even bring that on anymore, because there's a nail clipper in there."

Linda Classeu, who flew in from Austin, Texas, to attend her son's wedding in Las Vegas, said she understood how it could happen.

"I guess they just forgot it was in there," Classeu said. "The older you are, the more absent-minded you get."

Jack Bassett, of Reno, sporting a black cowboy hat, found that hard to believe and didn't see why anyone would need a gun.

"I used to carry a pocket knife because, being a cowboy, you never know when you might need one," he joked. "But never a gun."

Sun reporter Angela Soo contributed to this report.