2026-05-01T08:07:00-0400 / 哥伦比亚广播公司/美联社
美铁正考虑允许乘客在多数列车的储物箱中存放枪支，批评人士称，鉴于上周末白宫记者协会晚宴发生枪击事件，此举会削弱安保措施，而安保本应得到加强。
两名熟悉该提案的知情人士向美联社透露，美铁至少从今年初就一直在考虑这项政策调整，此前特朗普政府官员曾向其施压，要求放宽武器运输限制。由于未获公开发言授权，他们要求匿名。
他们表示，尽管上周六一名男子被捕——当局称该男子乘坐美铁列车从加州前往华盛顿特区，随身携带枪支，企图在当日晚宴现场刺杀特朗普总统及其他政府官员，但美铁并未放弃该提案。
当局称，科尔·托马斯·艾伦在试图冲过举办晚宴的酒店宴会厅附近的安全 barricades 后被捕，期间与特勤局特工发生交火。一名身穿防弹背心的特勤局特工被击中背心但幸免于难。
当局称，艾伦携带一把霰弹枪和一把半自动手枪，从加州托兰斯的家中通过铁路运抵此地。美铁拒绝透露他是否遵守了公司现行规定——该规定要求他申报携带枪支，并允许美铁将枪支与托运行李一同上锁。艾伦的律师表示，他没有犯罪记录，应被视为无罪。
检察官称，艾伦购买了一张从洛杉矶经芝加哥前往华盛顿特区的单程美铁车票。4月21日，他通过拼车应用预订了一辆车，从位于托兰斯郊区的家中前往洛杉矶联合车站乘车。
向美联社透露消息的人士表示，美铁拟议的规则变更可能很快就会开始试点，该方案将在列车上增设储物箱，以便全美各地的乘客均可携枪乘车，而非仅允许在带有上锁行李车厢的列车上携带枪支。
此次调整将使每日超过1500趟列车允许携枪——包括美铁东北走廊日均约75万人次乘坐的线路——而现行规定仅允许在约20多趟以长途线路为主的带上锁行李车厢的列车上携带枪支。
倡导组织“每个城镇支持枪支安全”主席约翰·范布利特表示，此举会降低安全性。
他说：“就在一名男子乘坐美铁列车携霰弹枪和手枪前往华盛顿，企图刺杀总统及其他联邦官员仅数天后，特朗普政府正试图在所有美铁线路全面放开枪支携带，同时还着手削弱负责执行枪支法律、打击枪支贩运的机构。这只会让美国民众更不安全，国会必须在下次悲剧发生前介入。”
哥伦比亚广播公司已联系美铁征求评论。
美铁和美国运输部官员未立即回应美联社有关枪支政策的置评请求。
美铁可能出台的政策调整详情
目前，美铁要求乘客申报携枪情况，并将枪支卸下弹药后装入硬质枪盒妥善存放。枪支必须符合特定尺寸和重量要求。此类武器仅允许托运行李，与商业航班的枪支运输政策类似。
向美联社透露消息的两名人士表示，拟议的调整仍要求枪支在列车上上锁，且仅列车长持有钥匙。但该计划将为所有列车增设储物箱。
目前尚不清楚美铁将如何确定谁有合法携枪资格，也不清楚目的地当地法律是否允许携枪。包括纽约市在内的部分地区对携枪者有严格限制，可能需要许可证。但其他地区的枪支限制则较为宽松。
尽管美铁现行枪支政策存在规定，但有可能已有部分乘客违规携带枪支上车。与机场对乘客和行李进行安检不同，列车乘客无需接受安检，美铁也不会将乘客姓名输入犯罪数据库以识别潜在威胁。这一情况在华盛顿联合车站等繁忙航站楼，以及全美各地深夜停靠接客的小型无人值守车站均存在。
在这些静谧的无人值守车站，乘客通常会自行上车，列车会在列车长接触或扫描车票前就启动。因此根据该提案，枪支需要在乘车后数分钟内才能完成上锁。
强化安保：正确的应对方式
安全专家谢尔顿·雅各布森的研究助力了航空 TSA 预检系统的设计，他表示铁路部门应提前加强乘客筛查，在售票时收集更多信息并核查乘客背景。但他同时指出，在无法强制落实禁令的情况下，不可能彻底杜绝列车上的枪支。
他说：“现实是美国国内现有近4亿支枪支，我们应基于这一现状制定对策，而非试图打造一个没有枪支的乌托邦环境。”
雅各布森称，铁路旅行的风险低于航空旅行，因此投入巨资在每个火车站建立类似 TSA 机场级别的严格乘客安检系统并不值得。但他也承认，如果未来客运列车发生重大悲剧，这一计算可能会改变。
他说：“我们必须权衡风险与回报。我们要问：‘我们应该把钱投在哪里，才能以最小的不便为民众带来最大程度的风险降低？’”
铁路工会呼吁强化安保
近十年来，工会一直在争取加强客运铁路员工的保护，此前发生过多起类似事件：2017年，伊利诺伊州内珀维尔的一名车站员工被愤怒的乘客枪击。
国会有两项法案将赋予铁路员工与航空公司机组人员同等的保护，将干扰或袭击执行任务的铁路员工定为联邦罪行。工会还在部分州成功推动了相关法律的通过。
9/11事件后，美铁和许多其他地面交通公司禁止在列车和巴士上携带武器，但并未采取任何措施检测或筛查每位乘客是否携带枪支。2010年，国会通过一项法律，要求美铁及其他公司允许托运枪支。
Amtrak may ease rules on guns on its trains despite revelations after correspondents’ dinner, sources say
2026-05-01T08:07:00-0400 / CBS/AP
Amtrak is considering allowing people to store guns in lockboxes on most of its trains, which critics say would weaken security measures that instead should be strengthened in light of the shooting at last weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Amtrak has been considering the policy change since at least early this year, after being pressured by Trump administration officials to ease restrictions on transporting weapons, two people familiar with the proposed plan told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak about it publicly.
They said the railroad hasn’t abandoned the proposal despite Saturday’s arrest of a man who authorities say traveled by Amtrak from California to Washington, D.C., with his firearms intent on killing President Trump and other administration officials at Saturday’s event.
Cole Tomas Allen was arrested after, authorities say, he tried to race past security barricades near the hotel ballroom that was hosting the dinner, prompting an exchange of gunfire with Secret Service agents. A Secret Service officer wearing a bullet-resistant vest was shot in the vest and survived.
Authorities say Allen was armed with a shotgun and semiautomatic pistol that he brought with him by rail from his home in Torrance, California. Amtrak declined to say if he followed the company’s existing rules, which would have required him to declare he had guns and allow the railroad to lock them up with his checked bags. A lawyer for Allen has said he has no criminal record and is presumed innocent.
Allen purchased a one-way Amtrak train ticket from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., via Chicago, prosecutors say. And on April 21, he booked a car with a ride share app to travel from his home in the suburb of Torrance to Los Angeles Union Station to board the train.
Amtrak’s proposed rule change, which the railroad could begin testing soon, calls for adding lockboxes to its trains to enable passengers throughout the country to bring guns aboard, instead of only allowing guns on trains that have locked baggage cars, according to the people who spoke to the AP.
The change would open up more than 1,500 trains a day to letting guns on board – including on routes that roughly 750,000 people travel every day in Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor – instead of the current rule that only allows guns on a couple of dozen mostly long-distance trains that have locked baggage cars.
John Feinblatt, president of the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, said doing that would decrease safety.
“Just days after a man took an Amtrak train to Washington with a shotgun and pistol and tried to assassinate the president and other federal officials, the Trump administration is trying to open the floodgates for firearms on every Amtrak route, while also moving to hollow out the agency responsible for enforcing gun laws and preventing gun trafficking,” he said. “This will only make Americans less safe and Congress must step in before the next tragedy.”
CBS News has reached out to Amtrak for comment.
Officials at Amtrak and the Transportation Department didn’t immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press about the gun policy.
Amtrak’s possible policy changes spelled out
Currently, Amtrak requires passengers to declare they are bringing firearms aboard and secure them unloaded in a hard case. The guns must meet certain size and weight requirements. Such weapons are only allowed in checked baggage, similar to policies for firearms being transported on commercial flights.
The proposed change would still require guns to be locked up aboard trains, and only the conductor would have the key, according to the two people who spoke to the AP. But the plan would be to add lock boxes to every train.
It’s unclear how Amtrak would determine who is legally allowed to carry a gun and whether local laws at their destinations would permit it. In some places, including New York City, there are restrictions on who can carry guns and a permit might be required. But other places have looser gun restrictions.
Despite Amtrak’s current gun policies, it’s possible that some passengers are already armed or have carried guns on board. Unlike airports, which screen passengers and their luggage, train passengers aren’t screened and Amtrak doesn’t run passenger names through a criminal database to identify possible threats. That’s true at crowded terminals such as Washington’s Union Station and the tiny unstaffed stations throughout the country where trains stop in the middle of the night to pick up passengers.
In those sleepy unstaffed stations, passengers routinely board and the train starts moving again before the conductor ever makes contact or scans their tickets. So there would be at least several minutes before a gun could be secured under the proposal.
Tighter security: Ways to get it right
Security expert Sheldon Jacobson, whose research contributed to the design of the TSA PreCheck system used in aviation, said railroads should do more to screen their passengers ahead of time by collecting more information when they sell the tickets and checking passengers’ backgrounds. But he said it’s not possible to eliminate guns on trains when there is no way to enforce the rule.
“The initial condition is that there’s almost 400 million guns in this country,” he said. “Then work from there as opposed to trying to create a utopian environment where there’s not guns and we’re going to keep it that way.”
Rail travel poses fewer risks than air travel, so it wouldn’t be worth the investment needed to create a strict passenger screening system at every train station similar to what TSA does at airports, Jacobson said. But he acknowledged that calculation could change if there ever were a major tragedy on a passenger train.
“You have to weigh the risks and rewards. And you have to say, ‘Where are we going to put our money to get the greatest risk reduction for the greatest benefit with the least inconvenience to people?’” he said.
Rail workers press for tighter security
Unions have been fighting to strengthen passenger rail workers’ protections for nearly a decade, after several incidents like the 2017 shooting of a conductor by an enraged passenger at the train station in Naperville, Illinois.
Two bills in Congress would give rail workers similar protections to what airline crews have by making it a federal crime to interfere with or assault a rail worker performing their duties. The unions have also had some success getting states to pass laws.
Amtrak and many other ground transportation companies barred weapons on trains and buses after 9/11, but none put security measures in place to detect or screen every passenger for firearms. In 2010, Congress passed a law requiring Amtrak and other companies to allow firearms to be transported as long as they are checked.
