A contract employee at Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport was stopped by TSA screeners and denied access to the secure airfield after officers found an unloaded pistol and a folding knife in his bag, police said. The man, identified as 48-year-old Nathan Brown, had worked at the Warwick airport for about a month, according to the Rhode Island Airport Corporation.
Brown was screened and stopped before he could pass through a secure access point, as reported by WJAR. TSA screening detected the prohibited items before he could enter the secure area, and he was denied access, according to the airport corporation. Police said Brown told officers he did not remember the gun was in his bag.
Brown held a license to carry a gun in Washington state but lacked a Rhode Island gun-carry permit, police said. That distinction carries real legal weight: Rhode Island does not recognize out-of-state concealed firearm permits, including licenses issued by Washington, unless someone is simply passing through the state with an unloaded weapon and no intent to stay, according to the Washington State Office of the Attorney General. Out-of-state workers and visitors are generally required to obtain a Rhode Island non-resident permit to carry legally.
Felony Exposure Under State Gun Law
Brown now faces a felony charge for having a gun without a permit, along with a misdemeanor charge, police said. Under Rhode Island General Laws Section 11-47-8(a), carrying a pistol or revolver without a state-issued license is a felony punishable by one to 10 years in state prison and fines up to $10,000, according to the Rhode Island General Assembly. The state requires either a local police chief or the state Attorney General to issue a permit before someone can legally carry a concealed handgun.
The Rhode Island Airport Corporation referred the incident to the Rhode Island Attorney General's office. Tachaina Cole credited TSA with stopping the weapon and said no one was injured during the incident. Meg Boone said the incident was unexpected because the person carrying the gun worked at the airport.
Federal Rules Add Another Layer
The screening that caught Brown exists because of federal requirements, not just airport policy. Under Transportation Security Administration directives enacted in 2023, commercial airports must subject employees, contractors, and badge holders to physical security screening before granting access to secure airfield zones, according to the Faith Group. Those rules replaced a patchwork of local access-control procedures that previously varied airport to airport.
Beyond state prosecution, the TSA can separately pursue federal civil penalties of up to $17,062 per violation against people who bring prohibited firearms to airport checkpoints, a process that runs independently of local and state court proceedings. Nationally, the agency levied a record $22.98 million in civil penalties for carry-on firearm violations in 2024, a 10% jump from the prior year, as Forbes has reported, after intercepting 6,678 firearms at checkpoints across the country. Separately, if federal prosecutors choose to adopt the case, 49 U.S.C. Section 46505 imposes a statutory maximum of up to 10 years in federal prison for attempting to carry a concealed dangerous weapon aboard a commercial aircraft or into a secure airport area, as Hoodline has detailed in a separate case.
A Rare Catch at a Smaller Hub
Firearm interceptions at T.F. Green have historically been infrequent compared with larger regional airports. TSA screeners caught four firearms at the Warwick checkpoint in 2024, up slightly from three in both 2023 and 2022, according to TSA figures cited by Patch. Across eight New England commercial airports in 2024, screeners detected 48 firearms total, with nearly 90% of those weapons loaded when found, the TSA has reported; Boston Logan International Airport led the region with 24 detections that year.
T.F. Green, which opened in Warwick in 1931 and is operated by the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, was the first state-owned airport in the country and remains Rhode Island's primary commercial aviation hub, according to background compiled on Wikipedia. The case adds to what Rhode Island attorneys describe as an increasingly aggressive prosecutorial climate around weapons charges. State prosecutors opened 498 new criminal firearm cases statewide in 2025, the highest annual total in a decade, according to the Law Office of Stefanie A. Murphy, and Rhode Island's firearm statutes carry mandatory minimum sentences that limit judges' discretion once a conviction is secured.
