Rising Amount of Guns and Weapons Seized at Airports in South Korea
Via a reader tip comes this article showing the amount of illegal weapons that are seized at airports in South Korea:
Nineteen people have been caught this year trying to bring guns onto planes in Korea, a sharp increase from just one from last year.
According to Rep. Park Wan-su of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, Monday, 25 such cases occurred at airports across the country between January 2014 and this September.
The number changed little from two in 2014 to three in 2015 and one in 2016, but it has soared at an alarming rate over the past nine months.
During that period, 25 guns, 1,368 bullets, 395 knives and 1,374 other weapons such as stun guns have been seized.
“All the nation’s airports and related institutions should beef up their security in response to an increasing number of such attempts,” Park said.
According to Rep. Park Chan-woo of the same party, 34 people were caught at Incheon International Airport trying to smuggle guns into the country between January 2012 and this August.
During that period, 2,819 illegal weapons, including 1,483 bullets and 426 knives, were seized. The lawmaker said 45.8 percent of them came from the United States. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I wonder how many of these guns found are from people forgetting they had one packed in their bag or were they legitimately trying to smuggle it into Korea?
Holy number fudging batman…
So… of the 2,819, 1,483 were ammo so 1,336 “weapons”.
Of the 1,336, 426 were knives.. f’ing knives. I can buy a knife anywhere. So 910.
910 things that the RoK’s classifying as weapons. Given that this is a country that censors a steak knife if held the wrong way that could be anything. 910 things in a country of millions isn’t really much to get all excited ab.. ohhh.. what’s this? ” The lawmaker said 45.8 percent of them came from the United States.” oh that’s what this is, a piece on those damn ultra-violent Americans poisoning the pure Chosun lands? Did KT write this or did Hankyoreh? In any case the complaint is that 416.78 things came from America.
The real story is that people were trying to bring guns into Korea.
The real part of that story is that customs likely catches a fraction of the people trying to bring guns into Korea.
Korea is a top country for illegal firearms possession per capita…
…a couple of wars, looted armories, Russian sailors, returning overseas Koreas, and 70 years of slickyboys.
This line in the story was confusing: “Nineteen people have been caught this year trying to bring guns onto planes in Korea, a sharp increase from just one from last year.” Just a mis-statement? Did they mean “off of” planes?
Were people trying to board planes in Korea with guns? If so where to is a good question.