I was at an airport in India waiting for the person I was traveling with to get grilled by security, because he didn’t have a printed itinerary. I had some awareness that a security guard was standing next to me, but didn’t think much of it. When I looked over at him, there was an automatic weapon around his neck, hanging on his chest, with the barrel point right at me. I took a few steps back to get out of the line of fire.

The TSA does seem like security theater, and is annoying, but I’ve never had an automatic weapon carelessly pointed at my head in a US airport.