Not very long ago I brought 2 rather large knives, about 15cm blades, through the security check at Noibai Airport, in Hanoi.
I was flying to Nairobi as a pax. I was a bit absent-minded, I was thinking about a lot of other things, but I noticed the guy at the scanner stared at the screen and seemed not to believe his eyes. Then some more policemen came. They asked me to open the bag, and I slowly started to understand what I had done
The team leader laughed, and shook his head in disbelief
I was moving to [insert farway place in Africa here] and had already shipped a lot of things, but then I was a bit late in packing the last small things. And when I emptied the safe, I (obviously) put all valuables I had in the safe in my carry on luggage. Small stuff like gold cufflinks, jewelry, some money, etc. And the 2 knives, in a box. I must have been very absent-minded when I put the knives there. My grandfather had made them for me when I was born, and while they're inlaid with gold, they're not very valuable in terms of money, but of course they're worth a lot to me, I don't want to lose them in checked-in luggage (particularly in developing countries). So I was a bit stressed, moving, a bit late, wondering if I had everything, thinking about the future etc. And since I have never seen myself as a threat to aviation, my brain probably short-circuited, I simply didn't think at all.
The police officer in HN laughed, and said he'll let me put the knives in checked-in luggage, away from the cabin. Escorted me until that was done - I got on board on time - and wished me a nice flight. He smiled all the way, and was very polite. Must have been the the weirdest thing he saw that day. And probably he thought "westerners are all crazy - bringing huge knives" (I agree with that
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All well. But I was probably lucky I wasn't in the US, I don't think there is a lot of room for common sense and courtesy in most countries anymore. And even if a police officer there had been nice and reasonable, then the TSA agent probably would not be, and vice versa. One or the other would probably file a report, etc, preventing the other from applying common sense. And none of them would probably have bothered to let me keep the knives, even if they had not filed charges. And/or their supervisors would not let them take time away from the duty station. I may be wrong here, exceptions still happen, but I'm not going to test it.