Excuse me but are these your bullets?

Excuse me but are these your bullets? 

An American tourist is being held in jail in the Turks and Caicos because their equivalent of TSA found four hunting cartridges in his bag. He faces up to 12 years in prison. He admitted that the cartridges were his and were from a previous hunting trip. One wonders how our TSA could have missed the cartridges. However, they did and the unfortunate tourist, rather than being faced with a fine, is in prison.

The incident brought back memories of something similar that happened to me on one of my bow hunting trips to South Africa. I landed in Johannesburg and went from the international terminal to the domestic terminal to catch my flight to Polokwane. Going through their security I was summoned to come look at the x-ray of my carryon which showed a rifle cartridge. The agent asked if he could open the bag. I said yes. From it he pulled out a .375 H&H. I told him that I was going bow hunting and did not own a rifle with that cartridge. The H&H is a big bore cartridge used for large game such as rhinos and elephants. The agent didn’t care. He said “it is in your bag so it is yours”. He said he was going to have to call the airport police who would take me to their office for questioning. That would mean that I would miss my flight. The hunt was three hours from Polokwane and the outfitter would be on his way to pick me up and due to the lack of cell phone service could not be contacted. I then asked if there was anything I could do in order to make my flight. The agent then said “walk with me.” He grabbed my bag and walking to the gate said that his friends were “very thirsty.” I took out a $100 bill and asked if he could use this to buy them a Coca-Cola. He held out his hand. I let him palm the money. He gave me my bag and said “Welcome to South Africa.” What he meant of course was “Welcome to South Africa, sucker.” I made my flight. When I told the outfitter what had happened, he said that it was a common scam played on hunters at the airport. I naively thought that when I went to South Africa that I would be greeted as a long lost brother. Silly me. I was just another easy mark.

Another incident occurred on a bear hunting trip to Canada. Although hunting is a major source of revenue, the Canadian custom agents act as though they do not like hunters. We are usually the last allowed to go through customs and are often harassed. On one trip to Alberta, the customs agent pulled a can of bear spray from my bag and informed me that it was considered a “projectile” and not allowed to be brought into the country. I showed him a list of items that the outfitter had suggested I bring with me. One of the items was “bear spray.” I then asked the agent if I could buy bear spray outside the airport. He said yes and that it was available in most every store in the province. He was going to confiscate my spray and because of the letter from the outfitter he was not going to fine me. Instead, he was going to make a record of my transgression and allow me to enter the country. As I was leaving he said “Have a good hunt.”