Open Carrier Arrested For Pointing Rifle At Women In PHX Airport

Peter Steinmetz has carried an AR-15 into Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport at least twice. This time, he got arrested.
Peter Steinmetz has carried an AR-15 into Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport at least twice. This time, he got arrested.
Peter Steinmetz has open-carried an AR-15 into Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport at least twice. This time, he got arrested.

Muzzle discipline. Muzzle discipline. Muzzle discipline.

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Time and again Bearing Arms has warned long gun open carriers that they need to be cognizant of where their muzzles are pointing, as videos and still photos show them repeatedly sweeping one others (and sometimes themselves) with the barrels of their firearms.

An open carrier at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport has just been arrested and charged with two felonies for apparently doing precisely that:

A man who works as a director at the prestigious Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix was arrested Friday after he carried a rifle into Sky Harbor International Airport, Phoenix police said.

Peter Steinmetz, 54, of Tempe, was booked into a Maricopa County jail on suspicion of two counts of disorderly conduct for displaying a deadly weapon.

The counts stem from when Steinmetz removed the AR-15 from his shoulder and the muzzle faced toward a woman and her daughter in a waiting area in Terminal 4, according to police. Both the woman and her daughter reported fearing for their safety, police said.

Police said Steinmetz was first observed buying a cup of coffee in the airport with the gun slung over his shoulder. They said Steinmetz walked to the eastern end of the third-level lobby and stopped in front of the B gates.

When confronted, Steinmetz said that he went to the airport only to buy a cup of coffee and had no other business there, police said.

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“Disorderly conduct for displaying a deadly weapon” is a class six felony in Arizona, and Steinmetz could potentially be facing up to a year in prison for each count and possible termination  as director of the neuroengineering program by Barrow Neurological Institute.

This incident was not Steinmetz’s first time carrying an AR-15 into the airport.

Authorities say that he is the same man who previously walked through Sky Harbor with a shouldered AR-15 in early November, just two days after a TSA agent was shot and killed at Los Angeles International Airport. An upset passenger and gun owner who witnessed the November incident described Steinmetz as “smug” at the time.

It appears that his most recent stunt has backfired spectacularly, and it may cost him his job, his gun rights, and his liberty.

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