Your Friendly Neighborhood Celebrity Could Become a Terrorist.

Have you been to the airport lately?

 If you have, you know how much of a pain in the butt it is to have to remember not to fill your water bottle until after security; you know that you can't carry your perfume or your lip gloss in your bag; you have your ID and boarding pass ready for every check point you'll have to make it through in order to board your plane.

But even before the ban on liquids and the increased ID checking, you knew it was wrong to carry a weapon through an airport.  It's a matter of common sense and, if you have none of that, you know from reading the countless signs, contracts, screens, and billboards that tell you in order to carry a weapon on a plane, it needs to be locked seperately from the ammunition and in the cargo hold-- No, your concealed weapons permit does not apply.  No, you can not have your .45 Caliber Handgun in your carry-on.  No, you can not carry a collapsible baton in your computer bag.

 Before I expand on that, I'd like to point out my recent experience in an airport.

Just a few months ago, I was dropping my boyfriend off at the SeaTac airport in Washington when he was getting sent TDY.  His flight was delayed so we were really early, and we walked around the airport for a while, taking in all the interesting sights (note the sarcasm).

Amidst all the identical newsstands and Starbucks', there was a man being followed by airport security.  They asked for his ID.  Apparently, he was in the airport for the sole reason of being in the airport.  He didn't have a flight, he wasn't dropping anyone off... and security didn't like that.  Rightly so, especially with our recent up in security in our country.  The man was later arrested-- not for doing anything necessarily wrong, but for loitering in a place where security is extremely important.  He was arrested.  He probably spent the night in jail, maybe longer (probably not).

So moral of that story?:  Airport security is tough and if you violate their rules, you could be arrested and go to jail.  Even for something silly like hanging out in the lobby.

Then today, I find out that Snoop Dogg (everyone's favorite rapper, I presume... the story from MSN.com is under the link) was arrested in an airport, too.

 He was caught carrying a collapsible baton in his computer bag.  That's right folks, a weapon.  He was arrested; maybe he spent the night in jail (the story doesn't really go into much detail about that... ironically) but he obviously got himself out on bail.

And in any average joe's trial, there would more more than hefty fines to pay; there would be probably be jail time on top of probation and community service.

Well, Snoop is on probation for it.  He was ordered to pay a total of $11,000 in court fees and charity (i'm sure that's a huge gouge out of his pocket book.  Not.)  And he has to do community service.  But only 160 hours. 

People who hack computers get 200 hours of community service.  People get 260 hours of community service for carrying drugs.  And I even found a case where someone served a total of 284 community service hours for the illegal position of a [undisclosed] weapon.

Snoop was illegally posessing a weapon.  In an airport, no less.  And concealing it (no one knew it was there).  Accident?  Possibly... but that doesn't justify the fact that he is getting off so easily.

If nothing else, this is just going to get him more publicity.  Hey, camera time is camera time, whether you're planting trees in a park or getting a new grill put in your mouth.

I'm not sure why he's getting off so easily; maybe it's his first offense.  Oh wait, it's not.  He's been caught with illegal weapons before.  And charged.  Imagine that

Maybe it's because he is a household name.  Either way, I don't really think it's fair.

 I wish I had the guts to carry a baton through my airport... just to see what would happen when I got caught.  And I have a clean record... he definitely didn't.