Passengers caught trying to carry handguns past security at O’Hare and Panama City airports on Dec. 21 pushed the total number of gun confiscations by Transportation Security Administration screeners past 1,500 for the year, data compiled by Medill National Security Zone shows.

Through Dec. 31, 1,525 guns had been found.  (View interactive graphics of weekly totals and individual incidents by date and airport).

The pace of confiscations nationwide was up in the second half of the year compared to the first — 832 since July 1 vs. 693 from Jan. 1 to June 30.

The total this year is an increase of 16% over 2011 and 36% over 2010.

National Security Zone, part of the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative, compiles its own running database based on a weekly list of confiscations posted on the TSA Blog on Fridays. Data for the final few days of the year was released to National Security Zone on Thursday.

Of the guns confiscated, 85 percent have been loaded — and 26 percent were loaded AND had a bullet in the firing chamber.

Airports with the most confiscations so far this year: Atlanta (97); Dallas/Fort Worth (80); Phoenix (53); Houston Bush (51) and Fort Lauderdale (42).

Those top 5 airports accounted for 25% of all guns.

The first gun of 2013 was found on Wednesday at Atlanta airport, the TSA reported this week.  

A full list of the Top 15 airports is below; a sortable list of each incident by day and by airport is available here.

SOURCE: Medill National Security Zone compilation and analysis of TSA data.