Good? TSA Theft deterrent idea? How legal?

So, I learned a trick a long time ago to deal with checked luggage. If you never ever want to lose your luggage and not have it messed with, go buy a starter pistol (the one to start races). You will need to declare and with it declare your knives. This bag will then need to be treated as if it has a firearm. There are FAA regulations, HLS regulations, and special airline regulations. Your bag will not be lost as it will be tracked in multiple ways. It also will not be tampered with as no one wants a federal crime to deal with.
 
Your idea is not bad, but there's a better idea that Cory Doctorow came up with in 2006. You'll need a hard-sided piece of luggage for this one (as well as a hard-sided pistol case for inside the luggage), but if you're checking bags, you should use hard-sided luggage anyway given the vulnerability of zippers.
 
This sounds legal, and definitely a good idea if you've had knives stolen. However, I will say that I fly about 6-10 times a year, and I've never had any issue with knives being stolen. Was just traveling for the holidays, and had about 15 knives in my checked bag. They all arrived just fine. Perhaps there's one particular baggage handler at the airport you frequent who has sticky fingers and a knife habit?
 
I've read that most of the time these things happen within seconds, so they must know which bags can be opened fast, or even what bags are likely to have something good in them. I would think they would be mostly looking for jewelry, but anything that can be sold cheap works too. Some airports are worse than others, although I don't know if the actual stats are available.

At the end of the day its like a club on a car, yes it won't stop a determined thief. but it will stop the joyrider. Maybe adding a luggage strap is just enough to slow them down to not bother in a lot of cases, but might also mean that if they get a minute alone with the bag, it will flag it as having valuable in it?
 
Thanks guys for all the input.
The lock suggestion is great. I was still trying to find one which fits through most lanyard holes. So that's solved.

Also sealing the zippers/locks of the case is nice since the tempering becomes visible instantly and I could make a claim right there at the airport.
Looking through all belongings all the time just in case wouldn't have been practical especially with up to 8 suitcases and 2 tired kids.

The firearm declaration sounds like the most secure way but might be a hassle especially when flying back from outside the country. With the little ones I try to keep things as simple as possible. Going to a different counter and filling out a paper doesn't seem worth it at that point.

I hope that nobody else gets a knife stolen and the odds seem good based on what some wrote here. Maybe it's really just a few specific airports and I am often using one of them.

Maybe checking in too early (kids) also gives them more time to put the suitcases to the side and look them through?
 
The starter pistol trick only works when flying domestically, wouldn't try that anywhere else. zip-tying the locks only works for standard zippers, not coil zips and they can open them right up and leave the ziptie in place. Although I do ziptie mine shut anyway, locked doors and honest people I guess.
I think the cable lock is probably your best bet.

One last thought if you do loose stuff. I'd put in a complaint to the airport authority for that airport as well as the airline. The airline has no motivation to deal with the problem, but the airport authority might.
 
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