This would have also been 2 years after 9/11. My 8th grade son was going on a school sponsored trip to Washington DC for 3 days. We dropped him off early one April morning to get on the charter bus and realized he didn't pack a jacket. It's warm enough here in April to rarely need one, but I knew he would very likely need one in DC. I had an old fleece jacket behind the seat of my pickup that I grabbed and gave to him.
When he got home, he apologized for having to throw a shotgun choke tube in the trash. He had found it in my pocket and when approaching a metal detector to get inside of a museum he wisely trashed it.
Last summer my wife and I were seeing the sights in Boston. I chose to carry a small sub 3" cheap pocketknife just in case I ran into a similar situation. When we tried to board the USS Constitution I walked into a room with a metal detector. There was no trash can and a one-way line with no good way to back out. Sure enough I set off the detector. When I pulled the knife out and gave it to the Sailor there working security he opened the blade, gave it a quick look, closed the blade and gave it back to me. "That's not a knife, just keep it in your pocket and enjoy your visit" he said.
