Amtrak is weighing whether to broaden gun access on its trains by letting passengers store firearms in lockboxes on many more routes, a shift that would come amid questions about security after an alleged gunman opened fire during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington. Two people familiar with the proposal told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that Amtrak has not abandoned the plan and has been considering the policy change since at least early this year. They said the railroad faced pressure from Trump administration officials to ease restrictions on transporting weapons.
The reported effort would replace Amtrak’s current approach, which requires passengers to declare firearms and secure them unloaded in a hard case that is handled as checked baggage under existing rules. Under the plan described to AP, trains would carry lockboxes and would still require firearms to be locked up aboard the train, with the conductor having the key. The people familiar with the proposal said Amtrak could begin testing the lockbox approach soon.
Amtrak’s current rules limit when guns can be transported, allowing firearms mainly on a couple dozen mostly long-distance trains that have locked baggage cars. The proposal would expand coverage to more of the system, opening more trains to allowing guns aboard, including routes through the Northeast Corridor that carry large numbers of daily riders, according to the two people. Amtrak declined to comment on the policy change, and officials at Amtrak and the Transportation Department did not respond to questions from AP.
The discussion of whether guns should be secured on board comes shortly after an incident that authorities said involved a man traveling by rail to the dinner. Authorities said Cole Tomas Allen was arrested after he tried to race past security barricades near the hotel ballroom hosting the event, prompting an exchange of gunfire with Secret Service agents. The Secret Service officer, according to authorities, was shot in a bullet-resistant vest and survived.
Authorities said Allen traveled by Amtrak from California to Washington, D.C., with firearms with the intent to kill President Donald Trump and other administration officials at the Saturday event. Authorities said Allen was armed with a shotgun and semiautomatic pistol that he brought by rail from his home in Torrance, California. A lawyer for Allen said he has no criminal record and is presumed innocent. In response to questions about the company’s existing rules, Amtrak declined to say whether Allen complied with procedures that would have required him to declare the guns and allow the railroad to lock them up with checked bags.
Amtrak’s proposal also raised questions about how it would handle legal permission to carry firearms across different jurisdictions. The two people familiar with the plan said lockboxes would be added to every train, but it remained unclear how Amtrak would determine who is legally allowed to carry a gun on a given trip. The proposal would also have to account for local restrictions at destinations, including rules in places such as New York City that may require a permit, while other areas have looser gun restrictions.
Critics said broadening gun access on trains would increase risk rather than reduce it. John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said the timing reflected what he described as an effort to open firearms access even after the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. In comments to AP, Feinblatt said, “Just days after a man took an Amtrak train to Washington with a shotgun and pistol and tried to assassinate the president and other federal officials, the Trump Administration is trying to open the floodgates for firearms on every Amtrak route, while also moving to hollow out the agency responsible for enforcing gun laws and preventing gun trafficking.” He added, “This will only make Americans less safe and Congress must step in before the next tragedy.”
Security experts also pointed to enforcement challenges that arise because rail passengers are not processed the way air travelers are. Sheldon Jacobson, whose research contributed to the design of the TSA PreCheck program used in aviation, said railroads should collect more information when passengers buy tickets and check backgrounds to improve screening, but that it is not possible to eliminate guns on trains where there is no way to enforce an absolute ban. Jacobson said, “The initial condition is that there’s almost 400 million guns in this country,” and he said, “Then work from there as opposed to trying to create a utopian environment where there’s not guns and we’re going to keep it that way.”
Jacobson said rail travel poses fewer risks than air travel and that creating strict airport-style screening at every train station would require major investment. He acknowledged, however, that tradeoffs could change if there were a major tragedy on a passenger train. He said, “You have to weigh the risks and rewards. And you have to say, where are we going to put our money to get the greatest risk reduction for the greatest benefit with the least inconvenience to people?”
The proposal also enters a debate over protections for railroad workers. Unions have sought stronger protections for passenger rail employees for nearly a decade after incidents including the 2017 shooting of a conductor at the train station in Naperville, Illinois. Two bills in Congress would make it a federal crime to interfere with or assault a rail worker performing their duties, the AP report said, and unions have also obtained some state laws to add protections.
While Amtrak and other rail and ground transportation companies barred weapons after Sept. 11, none put in place measures that detect or screen every passenger for firearms, AP reported. In 2010, Congress passed a law requiring Amtrak and other companies to allow firearms to be transported if they are checked, a framework that now shapes how Amtrak’s lockbox proposal would be evaluated.