The filmmaker Sean Malone, when traveling through LAX recently, had a belt buckle confiscated by the Transportation Security Administration. The buckle was silver and shaped like the ray gun used by the comic/game/TV character Flash Gordon. (It was "my favorite belt buckle," Malone notes.) TSA agents, having noticed the buckle during a bag check, pulled Malone aside to ask him about the gun-shaped metal thing they'd seen packed among his other belongings.