Re: Not quite a straightforward bribe
For a long time because I was a tight bastard, my range bag was also my cabin bag for travel.
I'd regularly get stopped and swabbed while travelling with it (usually between NZ and Aus), often within 24 hours of it being used to store magazines, ammo and so forth.
Never once asked any questions or any other consequences. Makes me wonder just how much of the process is psychosomatic.
That said I also have anecdotal evidence of an Australian Army engineering team coming back from Iraq having spent their time there doing BDA and other demolition work being stopped by a particularly unimaginative Australian Border Patrol officer who could not understand why a group of soldiers (in uniform no less) kept dinging the machine, even after they showed him their various paperwork on their role.