I read about a perfect way to avoid TSA theft from a photographer. Apparently, you can actually fly with a pistol in checked luggage, as long as it is in a securely locked container. The photographer was worried about his $12k camera gear, so he added a starter pistol (just the pistol, no "bullets") into the bag with his camera equipment. Upon arriving at the airport, he declared his "gun", was taken aside to show the TSA agents everything in his photography case, then locked the case using a non-TSA lock. At that point, unless they physically broke into the case, the TSA could not enter the case (and no TSA agent is going to be stupid enough to break into a locked gun case). I thought it was a rather brilliant use of the TSA's own rules to protect his luggage.
Not sure how that would work. For obvious reasons, the case containing a weapon isn't marked as having a weapon in it. Plus if they need to reinspect the case, they'll just cut the lock. Besides, as MacThulhu said above, it's not really TSA that you have to worry about.
Not true. Airport security regulations prevent gun cases with cut locks from being place on a plane. The case must be hard-sided to prevent anyone except the owner from opening it.
Check out the TSA regulations regarding guns.
Mind you, the article I was reading dealt with domestic US travel. Travel inside other countries or internationally will of course have different regulations.
And yes, you do need to worry about the TSA. There are plenty of articles describing abuse by TSA officials. They are human, like all of us, and there are good TSA officers and bad TSA officers. I rarely carry anything in checked luggage worth stealing, and so I don't protect it to that degree. If you are traveling with thousands of dollars of camera equipment, jewels, or other valuables, this makes much more sense.
Again, how is anyone going to know the case contains a weapon if it's a locked camera case?
The case must be declared before boarding to TSA officials. They require you to unlock the case in their presence, they view the contents (making sure someone isn't smuggling a bomb on board in a locked gun case), then lock the case such that only the owner can open, and send the case on the way. They may perhaps mark it as a gun case, I couldn't say, and the article does not qualify.
I used "camera bag" as a generic term in the original comment, perhaps that is what is confusing. Expensive camera equipment (especially the lenses) are carried in hard shell cases and packed in foam, exactly like a gun case. The photographer simply added a starter pistol to that case, thus making it a gun case that he (tongue-in-cheek) happened to store camera equipment in.
That's right, you have to declare the weapon, it has to be in a locked suitcase, be unloaded and all ammunition needs to be in a factory wrapper. It's really no big deal to the TSA, people travel with weapons all the time. They just have to be checked.
MacThulhu
Pretty much everything that the TSA does (with the exception of some in-line sensory machines) is done right there where you can see it being done. The theft, or about 99% of it, happens after the background-checked, $35,000/year TSA agent hands the luggage to the ex-con, $5/hour airline employee who takes it back where nobody can see what's going on.