Standing in a nearly empty Annapolis courtroom, Davonta could barely speak.

Now 31, the Baltimore man has been struggling since his mother died of cancer. He was 12. There was homelessness, there were drugs and a gun 10 years ago. There was jail.

He lives with his girlfriend and their six children now, and to make their lives better, he earned a commercial driver’s license. To make their lives safer, he got a Glock 22.

“They’re shooting at kids,” he told an Anne Arundel County judge Monday afternoon. “They’re shooting outside.”

Then — as scores of others did last year — he messed up. He went to BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport on March 16 with his .40-caliber pistol and a loaded clip of hollow points forgotten in his carry-on bag.

That’s where Transportation Security Administration agents found it.

Davonta said what just about everyone in his situation says.

“It was just a mistake.”

On Wednesday, the TSA and Maryland Transportation Authority Police demonstrated the right way to pack your heat for travel in a campaign to reduce the numbers.

If you are a law-abiding gun owner, put it in a safe travel container and pack it in your checked bags.

BWI set a record for guns discovered at security checkpoints last year. The numbers were down nationwide, but 6,678 firearms is still a lot of guns.

By comparison, the 47 guns seized at BWI doesn’t seem like all that much. More than 2 million people fly through the airport monthly. It’s a busy place.

Even the judge who sentenced Davonta understood his offense was not much of a public safety threat.

“I don’t think that you had that gun to commit a crime,” Circuit Court Judge Donna Schaeffer told him.

There is something significant going on here, though. It’s the way guns have overflowed our lives, showing up everywhere.

“Part of the reason we’re seeing more guns in the airport is because more Americans are owning and carrying guns more than in any time in our nation’s history,” said Tim Carey, a law and policy advisor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence in Baltimore.

Gun buying boomed during the pandemic and again after the protests of George Floyd’s 2020 murder by Minneapolis police. They went up after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and will probably rise as President Donald Trump tests the limits of democracy.

About a quarter of Americans own a gun, with about 16% of Marylanders saying they own one. Maryland has changed how it grants wear and carry permits, and that could explain the BWI numbers.

The Maryland State Police processed 40,944 applications for carry permits last year, almost four times the number in 2020.

“More people are showing up here because of the change in Maryland’s wear-and-carry law,” said Assistant State’s Attorney Katherine Anthony, who prosecuted the case.

Davonta was one of six people stopped at security checkpoints by TSA agents in March and turned over to the police, arrest records show. I’m only using their first names so as not to compound their problems for what most said was an honest mistake.

Kymberli, 52, is a part-time actress. She lists weapons training on her resumé but forgot the unloaded Sig Sauer P365 and ammunition in her bag.

When he goes to the shooting range, Antonio, 36, told police he keeps his Stoeger STR-9F in his backpack. On a trip to Atlanta, he grabbed the bag but forgot about the gun.

Kendall, 35, is a small-business owner. He put his backpack through the TSA security X-ray machine with his forgotten Springfield Armory Hellcat pistol still inside.

When officers opened Micah’s bag, they found a Polymer B80 — the most common kind of ghost gun found in Maryland. The 27-year-old told police it was a movie prop that didn’t belong to him.

Alexander, 57, is a private security executive. TSA agents found his Glock 19, with a round in the chamber, in his backpack. An agency official said 95% of the guns seized are loaded.

All except Davonta had things in common. They had no criminal record. Two had carry permits.

Each was cited with a misdemeanor. Police confiscated their guns, returned their bags and sent them on their way.

Within a few months, four received probation before judgment. A fine up to $15,000 — usually far less — lawyer’s bills and loss of the gun. Their convictions can be wiped from the public record if the defendants stay out of trouble for three years.

Charges against Alexander were dropped, but it’s not clear why. The assistant state’s attorney who handled his case left the prosecutor’s office a short while later, and a spokesperson couldn’t find the explanation.

Peter O’Neill, Davonta’s attorney, has defended about a dozen of these cases, and said most people charged have no criminal record. Some might lose their handgun qualification license or their carry permit.

“I’ve seen this with police officers, NSA employees,” he said.

There’s no evidence of a crime spree at airports related to guns seized or that guns are getting through tight security in post-9/11 airports. Seeing the significance can be hard.

“A lot of this we’re still seeking to understand,“ said Carey, the gun policy expert. ”In part because it’s a complicated problem to measure.”

The consequences were visible Monday in that almost-empty Annapolis courtroom.

Davonta bought his gun on the black market, deciding it was necessary protection in a violent neighborhood. A check discovered it was stolen in another state.

He thought a commercial driver’s license (CDL) was a way to escape gun violence but lost a job offer once the new charges showed up on his background check.

“I got my CDL to get out,” he told the judge.

Sympathetic, Judge Schaeffer gave him five years for illegally possessing a gun, then suspended it and ordered him into a mental health treatment program for possible depression.

As a deputy sheriff led him off to jail to wait for a treatment spot, Davonta asked if he could hug his girlfriend goodbye.

“I’m sorry, they don’t allow that,” the judge said.