The Statue of Liberty Attracts a Heavily Weaponed Crowd

Leave your guns at home, Bill.

For some reason, tourists are bringing knives, brass knuckles, collapsible batons, screwdrivers, pepper spray, blackjacks, and other "miscellaneous weapons" with them to visit the Statue of Liberty. The Daily News reports that thousands of weapons have been seized from people headed onto the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands, who first must pass through an airport-style screening center with magnetometers and X-ray machines in Battery Park, in this year alone. And thank goodness they do, because some of them are packing heat. Officials remind people that their screwdrivers are unnecessary for a visit to Lady Liberty.

They also seized nearly 5,300 knives; more than 5,000 other "miscellaneous weapons," including screwdrivers and other tools, and nearly 7,000 cans of pepper spray.

The Park Police give people the option of taking legal weapons back to their hotel rooms or someplace else, and then returning for the trip to Liberty Island.

Occasionally, illegal guns have also been discovered.

For the absolute and definitive record: No weapons are allowed at the Statue of Liberty, though we doubt that the majority of people carrying said weapons have them exclusively for that visit. In fact, most of them confess that they're just used to carrying whatever weapon they may have on them, for their protection, or looks, or whatever. Maybe those weapons are even OK, legal, and/or stylish back where they're from!

The question we all have in the back of our minds, of course, is...how many illegal snow globes have been confiscated? Or maybe that's just us.

Protecting Lady Liberty: Airport-type security screening finds Statue of Liberty tourists well-armed [NYDN]

[JDoll / @thisisjendoll]

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