Former governor Haley Barbour arrested at Mississippi airport

Former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour agreed to pay a fine after he was arrested for trying to carry a loaded handgun through airport security.

Barbour was arrested Jan. 2 while attempting to board a flight from Jackson to Washington, D.C., with a loaded handgun in his briefcase, reported the Associated Press.

A Transportation Security Administration officer at an X-ray machine spotted the .38-caliber revolver loaded with five bullets, a TSA spokeswoman said.

Barbour, the Republican National Committee chairman in the mid-1990s and governor from 2004-12, said he forgot he put the gun in his briefcase after an assistant removed the weapon from his car.

“This was absentmindedness and nobody’s fault but mine,” Barbour said.

The fine for having a loaded firearm at an airport checkpoint is at least $3,920, according to the TSA website.