A Georgia man was cited by officials at Washington Dulles International Airport on Thursday after he was caught with a loaded gun at a security checkpoint, authorities said.

       Transportation Security Administration officials said the man, from Atlanta, was carrying a 9mm handgun loaded with 17 bullets. The man also had an additional bullet in his carry-on bag and a walking stick with a dagger-like sword concealed inside, authorities said.

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       The handgun and dagger were confiscated, and the man, whose name was not immediately released, faces weapons charges, TSA said.

       This was the second such incident in the last week and the ninth handgun seized by officials at the airport this year, according to the TSA.

       Rate of TSA gun recoveries doubled in 2020 compared with a year earlier

       Firearms and ammunition are not allowed in carry-on bags. They can be carried in checked baggage if they are unloaded and packed in a locked container.

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       “There is a right way and a wrong way to transport a gun for a flight and the wrong way is to bring it to a TSA security checkpoint,” Scott T. Johnson, TSA federal security director for the airport, said in a statement.

       Last year, TSA officers caught 3,257 firearms on passengers or their carry-on bags at checkpoints, even as the number of passengers screened at checkpoints fell by 500 million compared with 2019, largely because of the coronavirus pandemic. That translated to 10 firearms per million passengers, compared with about five firearms per million passengers in 2019.