… well, yes, but they are armed guards and they are searching your luggage. I feel that’s more relevant than the exact method of lock removal.

No, the TSA security officers who are inspecting passengers and their luggage do not have arrest powers and are not armed.

If you are doing something illegal, they call the police, and the police arrest you.

Does your need to be technically correct outweigh your need to understand an argument?

Facts matter and yours are wrong.

The adjective "armed" in my topmost comment wasn't a technicality, it was the entire point of the anecdote. Do you really think I was saying that the TSA never searches luggage? Obviously the TSA searches a lot of luggage, the thing they don't do is carry guns while doing so.

Right, they have to call the guy with a gun over. Is the problem the luggage search, as in, the invasion of privacy? The explicit threat of force in the absence of immediate compliance? The assumption of guilt for the general populace? The ever-present security state continually looking to oppress?

Or is it “huh europe is weird they give their TSA agents guns instead of having the transport security and also airport police?”

It's just an anecdote. I wasn't trying to draw any philosophical conclusions from it.

To be fair, you are on HackerNews.