The problem is, where does this stop? This is starting to move from ensuring passenger safety to outright paranoia. They are going to continue to add more items to the list until it is going to be extremely cumbersome for most travelers to fly anywhere without having to buy basic, necessary items at their point of destination because they couldn't bring them with them. I could see all liquids being banned from luggage, cause any liquid could look like some kind of explosive, right? And, according to the TSA, you can transport unloaded firearms AND ammo in your checked luggage-but a Coke bottle or other innocuous items can be mistaken for a weapon? And how do you know checked firearms aren't loaded? It amazes me how many people are willing to continue to believe in sacrificing personal choice and freedom in the name of "safety".
I don't understand your point.
These weren't
added to the list. They didn't change any rules to explicitly not allow this particular product. They just let everyone know in answer to someone's question that these fall under a category that already isn't allowed..
A new toy gun would fall under the existing rule the exact same way.
Allowing these, would be an
exception to an existing rule and that's my point.
They aren't signaling out Coke bottles with liquid in them. The rule is against items meant to mimic a weapon which for some reason, in all their wisdom, is how Disney decided to make these bottles.
Again, I agree it seems silly to think that anyone would mistake a coke bottle for a weapon - it
does seem stupid - but the rule isn't that toy weapons aren't allowed unless you, the TSA operator who sees it personally feels they probably aren't a problem. It's toy weapons aren't allowed and I'm sure the stupidly strict reason for that rule is that
some a lot of people cannot be trusted to make good personal calls 100% of the time in situations like this.
My guess is, the ones making it through are doing so becasue the TSA operator doesn't know what it's supposed to mimic rather than because they're cool with making their own value judgement in the face of the rules.
A lot of people are questioning how stupid a TSA operator would need to be to consider these a threat. That's missing the point of the rule which is to as much as possible, make it something not up to the operator to decide for themselves and that's how it should be.
Aside from people making dangerous choices, this kind of handling is also intended to protect personal liberties by eliminating or at least minimizing things like profiling. I mean, if a TSA operator is allowed to make a "common sense" judgement call on something like this, are they also allowed to do the same thing regarding suspicions of dark skinned people?
So yeah, I feel for you* if you don't get to take your collector's coke bottles on the plane and feel your personal freedom to fly on an airline with whatever you want has been violated. I'm sure you'd have no problem shipping them back by way of UPS, USPS, or FedEx if they mean that much to you, though.
And if you really want to blame someone for all of this, look at Disney who decided to make their Coke bottles in-world grenades instead of just in-world drinking containers. A slight change to the cap and/or the plastic branded wrapping and calling them something else would probably fix the problem, completely.
*I know that reads as flippant but I agree it really does suck that we live in a world where such threats have to be considered and where the need to staff airports at a certain level, at a particular price point means hiring people who can't all be air marshals trusted to make the right calls.
