Bang goes the stupid
Pistol pendant causes airport holdup
The Colt .45 hung cold around her neck, like a pendant.
Because it was a pendant.
On Monday, Marnina Norys, a 39-year-old PhD student of social political thought at York University, was forced to remove a piece of silver jewellery cast in the shape of an antique pistol by airport security in Kelowna, B.C., who feared the trinket posed a security risk to the passengers on her WestJet flight.
Approaching the security desk, Norys says she was stunned when guards labelled the 5-centimetre pendant, with no bullets or moving parts, a replica firearm.
“When the woman pointed at the pendant I had no idea what she was talking about,” said Norys, who was informed that replica firearms are banned from planes.
“They made me feel ashamed, as if I should have known that it was wrong to wear this type of jewellery.” Flustered, Norys stuffed the pendant into her carry-on, but was surprised when the guards opened her bag and analyzed the trinket as if it were an actual gun.</em>
Do ya feel safer now? Do ya?
Me, I fear being smothered in the dumb.
