WASHINGTON -- Missed flights only inconvenience most people. A late flight landed Utah gun owner Greg Revell in jail for 10 days after he got stranded in New Jersey with an unloaded firearm he had legally checked with his luggage in Salt Lake City.

The Supreme Court could decide Tuesday whether to consider letting Revell sue Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police for arresting him on illegal possession of a firearm in New Jersey and for not returning his gun and ammunition to him for more than three years.

Lower courts have thrown out his lawsuit

Revell was flying from Salt Lake City to Allentown, Pa., on March 31, 2005, with connections in Minneapolis and Newark, N.J. He had checked his Utah-licensed gun and ammunition with his luggage in Salt Lake City and asked airport officials to deliver them both with his luggage in Allentown.

But the flight from Minneapolis to Newark was late, so Revell missed his connection to Allentown. The airline wanted to bus its passengers to Allentown, but Revell realized that his luggage had not made it onto the bus and got off. After finding his luggage had been given a final destination of Newark by mistake, Revell missed the bus. He collected his luggage, including his gun and ammunition, and decided to wait in a nearby hotel with his stuff until the next flight in the morning.

When Revell tried to check in for the morning flight, he again informed the airline officials about his gun and ammunition to have them checked through to Allentown. He was reported to the TSA, and then arrested by Port Authority police for having a gun in New Jersey without a New Jersey license.

He spent 10 days in several different jails before posting bail. Police dropped the charges a few months later. But his gun and ammunition were not returned to him until 2008.

Revell said he should not have been arrested because federal law allows licensed gun owners to take their weapons through any state as long as they are unloaded and not readily accessible to people. He said it was not his fault the airline stranded him in New Jersey by making him miss his flight and routing his luggage to the wrong destination.

Prosecutors said it doesn't matter whose fault it was: Revell was arrested in New Jersey with a readily accessible gun in his possession without a New Jersey license.

Lower courts have sympathized with Revell but refused to let him sue the police.

"We recognize that he had been placed in a difficult situation through no fault of his own," wrote Judge Kent A. Jordan of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. However, the law "clearly requires the traveler to part ways with his weapon and ammunition during travel; it does not address this type of interrupted journey or what the traveler is to do in this situation."

The case is Revell v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, 10-236.

Hopefully SCOTUS will do more than let him sue and will find a way to fix the problem.

It isn't the judicial branch's job to do this...

They could declare the law unconstitutional and then problem solved.

The Second Amendment is very selective.

Hopwin:

Basically, when it comes to the Second Amendment and various state handled issues of gun ownership, the Full Faith and Credit Clause doesn't apply; just like the Federal Government passed a law that specifically said states didn't have to apply Full Faith and Credit to certain issues relating to homosexual relationship.

Ideally yes, but this age is far from ideal. There are people out there who want deprive their fellow man of life and property. Resultantly, some folks wish to take their security into their own hands and carry as the law allows.

Including themselves, their germs?

Eventuallt I don't want people to have anything thar can be potentially harmful near other people. Driver-controlled cars included. I think people getting randomly harassed for gun possession is a good deterrant.

...there are stray bullets...

Illinois, Wisconsin, and New Jersey ...

If you are flying with a firearm or traveling with a firearm for whatever purpose, those are the 3 states you absolutely do not want to set foot in.

What's the issue with Wisconsin? I don't recall them having super bad gun laws.