Madison Cawthorn accused of bringing loaded gun to North Carolina airport

CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) was cited Tuesday for trying to bring a loaded gun through TSA at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department confirmed with Queen City News (QCN).

The exact citation has been classified as a “weapon law violation.”

According to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the loaded Staccato 9mm handgun was detected around 9 a.m. at Checkpoint D inside the CLT Airport.

The Hill has reached out to Cawthorn’s office for comment.

This is not the Republican congressman’s first run-in with TSA. On Feb. 13 of last year at Asheville Regional Airport, a loaded 9mm Glock was found inside Cawthorn’s bag going through screening, records showed.

Cawthorn has been in the news multiple times over the course of the past month. He was the subject of a number of photos shared with Politico that show the embattled congressman at what appears to be a party in women’s lingerie.

He acknowledged the photos in a tweet last Friday, saying they were from a vacation on a cruise and were taken before he ran for Congress.

“I guess the left thinks goofy vacation photos during a game on a cruise (taken waaay before I ran for Congress) is going to somehow hurt me?” Cawthorn said. 

“They’re running out of things to throw at me,” he added.

The photos come after Cawthorn took to the House floor earlier this month to share his definition of a woman, alleging Democrats were waging a “war on biology.”

Cawthorn defined a woman as having “XX chromosomes, no tallywhacker.”

Cawthorn has also been cited multiple times for various speeding violations. North Carolina Highway Patrol dashcam video released to QCN in April showed a traffic stop involving Cawthorn after he was pulled over in Cleveland County in March and charged with driving with a revoked license.

He has also taken heat after claims that people in Washington, D.C., invited him to an orgy and did cocaine in front of him.

The congressman is currently running for reelection in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District.

A super PAC tied to Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.) recently released a new ad attacking Cawthorn.

The ad from Results for NC, which is aligned with Tillis, accuses Cawthorn of lying about fellow Republicans and getting accepted into the U.S. Naval Academy.