The TSA Does Not Like Your Luggage

A set of carrying cases molded with a gun, an axe, or a knife, designed by PinkWolf, and I can't read French well enough to figure out anything else about these slick, screw-you-TSA suitcases. (Via NOTCOUTURE.)

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catbeller

“I don’t have much sympathy when the TSA tackles you and takes you to the back room.”

Stockholm Syndrome.
Tzctlp

What is this protesting or reflecting about?

Today you can carry a knife and even the axe in checked in baggage.

In many localities you can also carry the gun as long as you declare it previously.

I understand that security personnel, specially in US airports, are brain dead, but playing straw man tactics to make a point is frankly contemptible.
Hattmannen

If I ever flew I would get one of those. I think the axe looks most stylish. Bit o’ the ol’ Cubrick-ean ultraviolence feel to it.

If they ask any questions, just open the bag for them to reveal all the pages saying: All work and no play…..
pseudonym

Welcome to special screening, each and every time. Body cavity search, anyone ?
wanderingaramean

This looks very similar to a line of products that Vlieger & Vandam released back in March 2008. Their “Guardian” models have guns and knives molded into the bags, too.

Definitely not a good idea for bringing along on your next trip on an airplanes.
Takuan

mmmmmm cavity search….. must design colonic mouse trap with picture of Kip.
Takuan

come to think of it, an anal version of the Rapex big enough for a TSA greeter’s head? (the BIG one).
Lord Xenu

Translation of the website’s text:

What makes us more afraid: to know or to remain ignorant? To see things or to imagine them? The weapon-suitcases play with the ideas of what we make of the things we see. Wearing a robe doesn’t make you a monk (Sorry, but I don’t know an equivalent English expression).

(ordering details, etc.)

So there!
These suitcases are a good foot in the nose of the increasingly drastic and incoherent rules of airports. Their seeming to have illicit contents won’t go unnoticed. On the other hand, leave them with your children, and a humorless customs agent will give you five hours of searching and questioning; you’ll stick out like a sore thumb. (roughly)
Justin Ried

I like the idea of passively protesting the TSA’s ineffective and counter-productive policies, but these smart-alecky suitcases are over the top. Not only are you inviting suspicion from the brute squad (thus slowing everybody else down), but you’re likely going to give a couple of your fellow passengers heart attacks.
pKp

Translation of French text on the website :

What are we most afraid of, knowledge or ignorance ? Seeing things, or imagining them ?
Our weapon-luggages play with the preconceived ideas we have about what we see. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Luggages are available in big, medium and small sizes. Fiberglass weapon moulding and fabric interior.

Available by mail order ; choose your own size, colour and weapon moulding.

On picture :

NEENER-NEENER !
These luggages are a way of thumbing your nose at increasingly drastic and illogical airport regulations. Their fake illicit content will not go unnoticed.
However, you should let your kid carry them : one custom officer without a sense of humour, and you’re up for five hours of searches and questioning.
pKp

Damnit ! Ninja’d. Nice one, Lord Xenu.
theMage

Takuan:

It’s in the 1st ammendment, the part most people forget: right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

BHO and the house have already stated their desire to re-instate the “fairness doctrine”. As long as they are going to shred the 1st ammendment, they might as well shred all 3 parts of it.
wolfiesma

Of course, 007 is a license to kill, and that’s in any language.
TJ S

It’s ok PKP, I found your translation easier to read, if not as timely.
EeyoreX

Why can’t we just put a fork in this silly lets-mess-with-the-airport-employees trend allready? It’s clearly done by now.

Just like those t-shirts with a print of a gun in the lining, or that led toothbrush container that looks like a knife on the x-ray, or thosehilarious buttons that said “i’m not a terrorist” in arabic.

Carrying one of these bags arund in an airport or on any public transport is probably a good way to get yourself singled out for a security screening. But, really, there are MUCH more efficient ways of achieving that particular goal without spending hundreds of dollars on snarky couture.

And even if you manage to get yourself screened every single time you go somewhere, exactly what will you have achieved? The security drones don’t make up the stupid rules, they just enforce them.
If anything, provokateurs make them look more efficient.

I’m just sayin’…
icky2000

Well said, eeyorex.
dougrogers

Well, actually, the 00 prefix indicates the agent has a license to kill. There were 9 such agents.

My geeky counter espionage moment
Ian70

I bet you won’t get shot carrying the ‘gun’ suitcase. Go ahead, get one, bring it to the airport. Better yet, bring it to an airport in the middle east. Betcha won’t totally get the life shot out of you by a guard. Betcha.
Nelson.C

EeyoreX @12:

The security drones don’t make up the stupid rules

You mean there’s a rule that says they have to harass everyone that doesn’t conform to a very narrow definition of normal? Well, that explains their reactions to t-shirts with guns printed on them, t-shirts with Transformers printed on them, t-shirts with LEDs wired into them, children travelling alone with gastric tubes, people named Ted Kennedy…. Thank you, that explains so much.
Erica Asahan

With styles like these luggages…This will sure make the TSA jobs be more interesting and worthwhile…Since I am not too keen with any firearms..I think, i’ll take the engraved axe please, I just hope they have it in baby pink!!! He he he!
butfirst

“…must design colonic mouse trap with picture of Kip.”

Ahh Takuan, your ability to both horrify and delight in one short sentence is much appreciated.
bjacques

I like the one with the axe, but I doubt I’d be carrying one through airport security in hopes of being the first person ever to win an argument with TSA while standing in line with a bunch of harried people waiting behind me.

Why choose to fight a battle on an enemy’s home turf?
caoimhin

NELSON.C @ 16

“You mean there’s a rule that says they have to harass everyone that doesn’t conform to a very narrow definition of normal?”

No, not at all–but those workers are charged to investigate anything that seems suspicious. Many of them don’t regularly read tech blogs and might not know that LED t-shirts exist. From that perspective, such a shirt surely is suspicious. And if a bomb were wired to it, they would be held accountable for not investigating something so unusual.

This has nothing to do with the man trying to get everyone to conform. That’s ridiculous.
Takuan

nope,that don’t wash. There’s just too many witnessed incidents of deliberate bullying and TSA behaviour that would be criminal anywhere outside an airport.
Halloween Jack

Unoriginal design, and, more crucially, no wheels or pull handle. I last had a suitcase like this (minus the molded decoration) in the eighth grade.
Hans

I think there are plenty of reasons to criticize the TSA. However if you go out of your way to act like you have a weapon, I don’t have much sympathy when the TSA tackles you and takes you to the back room.
Takuan

a weapon tattoo or a weapon suitcase cover?
bolamig

When they outlaw snarkiness only outlaws will read boing boing.
JD Rhoades

Wearing a robe doesn’t make you a monk (Sorry, but I don’t know an equivalent English expression).

Just ’cause the cats are sleepin’ in the stove don’t make ‘em biscuits.
Frank W

If it were the TSA’s policy to hire footsoldiers who would not only pass the Turing test but who would actually be good at what they’re paid for, that is, telling signal from noise, you could travel with this luggage with no fuss. That’s the actual point these suitcases make.
I’m taken aback a bit by the way hominids internalise their oppression even here in the BoingBoing comments. Normality is no less lunatic for being normal.
heydemann3

JD Rhoades-that’s a wonderful use of simile. And nice to see you read boingboing-I find you over at Lee Child’s forum.
BeckyH
Anonymous

@#37, #39

I actually saw someone win an argument with the TSA to bring their axes on board. They were smoke jumpers on their way to a forest fire.
Tomas

Those who conflate “shirt with LEDs” with “Bomb!” have been watching entirely too many bad action movies.

I really seriously doubt that any actual covert bomb would come complete with multi-colored flashing lights to call attention to itself.

Only in the movies do all bombs seem to come with flashing lights and lighted countdown timers.

(The REAL bomb probably looks like something you would buy in any store, perfectly normal, serene, and non-suspicious…)
JD Rhoades

Hey, Becky! Of course I read BoingBoing. Doesn’t everybody?
Anonymous

I want one with an actual working axe compartment. For my axe – I like to keep it handy, and I hate it when it gets tangled up in my spare shirts.

–Charlie
a_user

let me relate a recent experience to you – on a return flight on a family holiday, I discovered my seat was in business, while the rest of my family was in standard, not what we booked. So I asked the check-in staff to put us in seats together. Then we get to the security checks and I was led off for screening, so I asked what was the reason for this and I was told it was because I’d changed my seat at the last minute.

I for one don’t think these suitcases are such a good idea, if you pay people to stand around looking for problems and they don’t have any they get bored. When they get bored they make stuff up just to have something to do.
NorrinRazael

I mean, I like the blue one as a suitcase for simple road travel myself… maybe non-ironic design use is the new anti-[blank]?
theMage

Yes, you have the right to bring one of these bags through the security line at the airport.

I also have the right to leave my brand new Corvette, engine running, unattended, in front of the 7-11 in the slums of LA.

Neither of us deserves to whine when we get what we deserve.
Nelson.C

TheMage @39: Protest â‰ whine
EeyoreX

Re: those replying to my previous post

For the record, I think the injustice that was done to Star Simpson is downright horrible, as do we all, right?

What I find most deplorable about the whole affair is how the security folks (and some of the media) tried to make Star Simpson look like some kind of malicious prankster or troll, when she was clearly just doing her thing and minding her own buisness.

So, could someone please explain to me just how it improves things when people willingly fill TSA’s strawman with their own flesh by going airport trolling? From my point of view, that’s just playing right into their hands.

And, as other Boingers have illustrated, trolling couture doesn’t even have that novelty value anymore. So shouldn’t we just move on?
chef

Sorry, not likely to be an original design VS a “me-too” copy of Vlieger and Vandam’s bag designs, which have been around for quite a long time now.

Design house homepage: http://www.vliegervandam.com/

In fact, AS SEEN ON BOING BOING: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/04/bag-with-gun-shape.html
Takuan

when enough protest, things change
EeyoreX

@Takuan

provoke â‰ protest
Anonymous

This is all goofy……first of all because they don’t look real. Secondly because things like guns and axes are check-in luggage when traveling…..meaning they will most likely be going through an automated system that will “alarm” on a threat in which the officer will check out on a CT scan like at the hospital. the bag will not alarm on a plastic picture of something……..the bag would go through unnoticed.
IMPOTENCY! You’ve wasted your money on something that no one will ever see…….you’re laughing at yourself.
mmbb

EeyoreX, the nail that stands up and stands proud gets nailed down.
mblitch

In the old days of flying and practical jokes, people used to cut out a silhouette of a large knife from a folded piece of aluminum foil and slip it in a business folder of a co-worker that was about to take a flight with a note of something like “When you’re shopping, please pick up a sheath that would fit this sized cutting utensil. Thanks.”, so that the befuddled carrier would at least have some plausible explanation.

Cannot really call a thin sheet of Al foil much of a weapon, even though it would look like it on the scanners.
Takuan

abject, craven surrender then?
Mitch

Yeah, I could see airport workers having a sense of
humor, too.

Making someone miss their plane would be hilarious.
pKp

“Unoriginal design, and, more crucially, no wheels or pull handle. I last had a suitcase like this (minus the molded decoration) in the eighth grade.”
Well, is IS intended for kids.