In what is surely a Thanksgiving dinner idea that never made it out of the group chat, Transportation Security Administration officers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport recently discovered a handgun stashed inside the body cavity of a raw chicken. If this sounds like something from a particularly misguided episode of a cooking show called “Weapons and Wings,” rest assured it was very real and very much not appreciated by the TSA.
The firearm, which was fully loaded with something other than stuffing, was found tucked unceremoniously into the poultry during a routine screening. Officers, who are trained to spot explosives and suspicious items but probably not gourmet smuggling methods, reportedly remained composed, even as the bird turned out to be armed and dangerous. The TSA, never one to cluck quietly when they foil such a bizarre attempt, shared the incident on social media, presumably with a side of disbelief and a sprinkling of gallows humor.
Now, in case you were wondering whether poultry is an approved container for firearms under federal law, the answer is a resounding no. The TSA reminds travelers, yet again, to transport firearms only in checked baggage, unloaded, locked in a hard-sided container and without the indignity of being marinated. Smuggling a gun in a raw chicken, it turns out, falls somewhere below “innovative” and just slightly above “appallingly unsanitary.”
No identity has been released and no motive offered for dressing a weapon in poultry, though one suspects the chicken may have been an unknowing accomplice in this featherbrained plan. The gun and its fowl host were confiscated, and the plot joins a grim pantheon of ill-conceived smuggling attempts, somewhere between the person who once tried to board a flight with a chainsaw and the traveler who thought a grenade-shaped perfume bottle would breeze through security.
It appears this bird won’t be flying after all, at least not in the overhead compartment.