Superbelt

http://www.click2houston.com/news/2648067/detail.html

And we aren't talking about toy plastic guns. These are working firearms made of plastics. The ban was put in place in 1988 as a terrorist prevention measure to keep terrorists from being able to slip a working gun past the metal detectors.

Ok NRA people, here's your time to shine. What possible reason could anyone have for not supporting a ban like this?

2wolves

Slippery slope?

2Wolves

reconmike

How does good old Teddy know it is a republican?

The statement says anonymous senator.

Could it be because Teddy boy thinks there is no way a dem would ever block this kind of bill.

And for your little NRA comment, I think it is a troll right from the start, but Ill bite.
Plastics= lighter weapons, ideal for continued shooting of commies and terrorists.

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Conclamo Ludus

Plastic could be more lightweight, more efficient, cheaper? I don't know, but it probably won't help you kill a deer any better.

I guess the only argument I could think of is what 2Wolves said.

Remember "In The Line of Fire"? Malkovic built his own plastic gun. It wouldn't surprise me if somebody has tried this.

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2wolves

The NRA's side of the aisle.

http://www.galleryofguns.com/shootin...es.asp?ID=5323

Fairly reasonable.

2Wolves

Superbelt

Definetly not trolling. I actually agree with the NRA positions more often than not. I am being serious and I think the NRA people could explain to me any good reason for allowing the mass market to contain plastic guns than anyone else.

Perhaps there is a way of tracing which side of the aisle the blocker came from. He could know that it was a Rep that way.

Dem or Rep, a man who wouldn't support a ban on a plastic gun is seriously deranged.

I didn't know the NRA already were against plastic guns and helped draft the original bill. That is good to know.

There is no good reason to have a plastic gun. It may be lighter but it would have an extremely short safe use life because the plastic wouldn't be able to stand up the the stress. The only real reason to have a plastic gun is to evade x-ray scanners and metal detectors.

Lebell

To put a little education out there:

There is NO such thing as an ALL PLASTIC GUN.

There ARE guns that have a greater or fewer number of plastic components (e.g. the Kel Tec and Glocks) but in all cases, critical components such as the barrel are made of metal.

Even at the time of the 1988 law, there were NO guns manufactured or planned that would not be detected by metal detectors, nor is it possible to do.

So why pass such a law?

The same reason that the "Assault Weapons Ban" and the "Cop Killer Bullet" bans were passed; they make good press for politicians pandering to an ignorant electorate.

But once you spend some time researching the issues, you see the laws for what they are, bs feel good laws that change nothing and mean nothing.

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j8ear

Plastic or steel, a ban on ANY gun is unconstitutional. See ammendment, 2nd of the Bill of rights. It's value, application, or practicality is of zero consequence.

It doesn't matter how ineffective our screening capabilities are or how easy this could make it for a "terrorist' to terrorize. IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

I know those of you anti-freedom, pro-restriction/governement regualtion types have already discarded this as an easily surmountable obstacle. Believe me there is a method to change the contents of the constitution and bill of rights.

Passing unconstitutional laws is not one.

For this very reason I would support blocking a bill which 'bans' said terribly "Dangerous" unsuitable for hunting firearm.

Slippery Slope is also a very good reason.

Off the top of my head I can think of no good reason to want an all plastic gun. At the same time I can think of no constitutional method to restrict it.

-bear

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2wolves

Ceramic barrels and jacketless ammo exist. A workable, majority non-metalic handgun, is not a fantasy.

2Wolves

apechild

A completely non-ferrous/ non-magnetic firearm would be beneficial to a soldier operating in an environment where magnetic or magnetically fused mines have been deployed.

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Lebell

To the best of my knowledge, I stand by my post, that there is no such thing as an all plastic gun, nor a gun that can get through a metal detector.

I have not seen any practical ceramic barreled guns, nor production caseless ammunition (which would shoot metallic bullets anyway).

If you have some links showing differently, I would enjoy reading them.

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onetime2

As others pointed out, there's no such thing (or at least one is not readily available if it exists) as a plastic gun. I assume the blocking of the bill is related to this fact. The name implies an all plastic gun that is undetectable to metal detectors which is wrong.

Not that it really matters since plenty of guns seem to slip by metal detectors all the time.

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2wolves

http://www.saf.org/journal/3_Chandler.html

I know they are not commercial products.

As for bullets..... wood works. Why it was banned.

Caseless: http://matrix.dumpshock.com/raygun/basics/caseless.html originally published by HK who know a bit about firearms.

Now is anyone claiming that a homemade firearm will be as good as a Glock? No. Can it be done. Yes.

2Wolves

Lebell

By point:

No, they are not commercial products nor with further research, can much more about "Red Eye Arms" be found, except that they are supposedly working on a ceramic barreled grenade launcher now.

So I don't think this is a very good source.

Second, wood probably would not work, since I doubt that it could stand the forces a bullet is normally subjected to.

Third, there is no argument about the possibilities of caseless ammunition, but it is irrelevent to this discussion. There is next to no possibility that a manufacturer will make caseless ammunition with a non metallic bullet. Why? No reason to.

Forth, of course homemade guns can be made, that isn't the issue. But you are making the connection between homemade guns (which as I recall is illegal anyway) and non-detectable plastic guns which, while theorectically possible, require advanced plastics and ceramics and the machining of them, which make them a practical non-issue, especially for terrorists.

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Superbelt

This bill would not ban non-metallic guns for military or police applications. Just civil purchases.

apechild

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."

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seretogis

I'm surprised that no one has bothered to link this ban of imaginary "plastic guns" to the ban of imaginary partial-birth abortions.

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2wolves

Your point #2: Wooden bullets were used in the first World War and outlawed due to the savagery of the wounds.

#3: Anything that can be manufactured can be made in a home lab. I refer you to the particle accelorator built at home by a teenager and recently profiled in the NYTimes and other major publications.

#4: Don't allow yourself to be swayed by conventional wisdom. If you'd like to know what the next 'big' thing will be ask the experts and whatever they deem impossible will be it.

2Wolves

Lebell

I did some more research and found a link on wooden bullets. Thanks for that.

As to a home lab, yes, some things can be made. Heck, go to Afganistan and you will find guys who can make you a machine gun or automatic pistol with little more than a couple of blocks of steel, a file and a drill.

Still, other things cannot be made by the home hobbiest, and I would classify advanced carbon/glass/ceramic composites as one of those things.

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2wolves

Now throw into your thought process an additional $500 million supplied by individuals who trust more in supposed divine guidance than total cost of development. Certain Saudi's really don't care what what it costs to advance the cause of Allah.

Fear the irrational.

2Wolves

tritium

Man! A plastic gun would kick something fierce! I, for one, am not interested in a plastic gun. I've used a featherweight titanium 38special and the kick sucked... to heck with that idea.

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seretogis

Heh, why spend $500 million on plastic guns when a box-cutter works just as well?

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Peetster

The most common reason a senator has for blocking restrictions against a certain item is that it's made in his home state. Does anyone know where this stuff is made? Maybe we can deduce the Senator...

tritium

Or the senator is dragging his feet and thereby, attempting to generate support for one of his/her own initiatives ... you scratch my back and i'll get your's...

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Moonduck

No such thing as plastic guns.
No such thing as all plastic ammo.
No such thing as all plastic firing systems.

Guns have to tolerate high pressures, even one shot weapons must. Most plastics won't survive the pressures without having other undesireable characteristics such as not being able to stand the heat, warpage, brittleness, etc. So we discuss ceramics. Okay, ceramics will take. However, a fair chunk of the ceramics that will take have a fair amount of metal in them. Enough to show up on an x-ray? I dunno. That said, I can accept that a non-metallic barrel can be made.

No such thing as all-plastic ammo. There have been wooden bullets, and there have been ploymer bullets. neither worked all that well. Wooden bulets caused ugly wounds and tended to cause functionality issues in the firearms. Polymer bullets lost velocity so quickly that you could catch them bare-handed at 50ft. That said, a bullet can be made non-metallic.

How about the case/propellant, then? There are three types of ammo/propellant out there - cased (standard set-up of powder in case with primer at base and bullet in front), caseless (bullet in front, propellant formed into hard conglomerate approximating the shape and functionality of a case, and a conductive disk at the back for electronic ignition), and loose powder (blackpowder, old-style cannons, etc, no case, propellant is packed in the barrel, bullet tamped on top of it and it is ignited from behind via percusion cap or flint and steel or some other fire).

Non-metallic material is simply not advanced enough to be able to stand the pressure of gunpowder. The case will not work as plastic, period. If it somehow managed to be made as plastic, the primer would still need to be metal due to the structure of modern primers. Yes, technology could advance to the point where this is feasible, but not at current levels of materials science. Passing a law to prevent something not scientifically possible within a few generations of materials is pointless.

Caseless rounds can be made all non-metallic. Performance of non-metallic bullets is horrible, but it would go bang. However, caseless ammo tends to require electronics for ignition. This means you would have a plastic item (and plastic still shows up on modern x-rays) and there would be wiring, circuitry, etc. This would definitely ring some bells at the airport security screening. Additonally, it is possible to detect the chemicals present and volatizing off of naked gunpowder, even wehn agglomerated like in caseless rounds. As blackpowder is a commonly available explosive, it is something that is tested for the presence of randomly. Still, the bottom line is that electronics with inobvioususes is generally not allowed on planes.

Loose powder is likely the most dangerous and hard to detect. There is no casing, the bullet can be non-metallic, and the barrel can be ceramic. You might just have a non-metallic gun but for one thing - ignition. Much like the caseless round, you need fire somehow, and that is either metal in percussion caps or flint and steel, or electronic and we hit the same barrier as caseless ammo. There is also that trace gunpowder detection problem as well.

At any rate, in any production, multishot gun you will have assemblies that must be metal such as springs, slide rails, pins, etc simply for safe construction. Metal doesn't fail as easily as plastic does in firearms usage. No manufacturer is going to produce something as unsafe as a gun with plastic hardware. It would be fiscal suicide.

Given all of this and how bloody unlikely a plastic gun is, I would consider legislation on such a pie in the sky item to be a waste of my tax-dollars. The legislature has far more iportant things to do than argue over prohibiting something that doesn't exist.

smooth

It looks like everyone is framing their responses according to current uses and conceptions of guns. Couldn't something as simple as a tube, trigger, and projectile that travels about 4 inches suffice the needs of a terrorists hijacking something?

I don't remeber the physics but when I worked in a flooring store we used to have to explain the risks of stilleto heels to wood floor buyers. A 100 lb lady in stilleto heels can do more damage to a wooden floor than an elephant in a single step.

You can experiment on your hand like this: drop a sharpened pencil over your hand, palm up. Now drop a new, unsharpened (blunt/flat) pencil on your hand. Which one did the most damage (caused the most pain/discomfort)?

This is all to say that I envision that a sufficiently sharpened projectile, traveling at the right velocity (which may be achievable by such a simple mechanism as a some type of elastic band), aimed at a particularly vulnerable spot (soft, critical, etc.), and delivered at close enough range can kill someone.

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onetime2

A few issues with that thinking. First, you would need to be one hell of a shot with that to do serious enough damage to them. Second, there's very little stopping power, you get a guy coming at you and you hit him in a non vital area with a 9mm you'll slow him down or stop him completely. You hit him with a rubber band projected sharpened object, he's still gonna be coming for you. A razor or a knife that allows you to slash or stab will be far more dangerous in close quarters combat.

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smooth

Well, I situated it well enough in my first paragraph, but I'll restate it since you didn't quote that section:

A terrorist doesn't need to be a very good shot to approach a flight attendent from behind in a friendly and normal fashion, quickly place one's hand a few inches (or even less) from any number of lethal spots in a typical gesture (take your pick: feigns a stumble, tap on the back, butt grabbing and hand to the throat, etc.) to kill someone.

I don't know if you understood my point that the utility of such a weapon is essentially useless for "stopping power" or protection or whatever other conventional use you might be envisioning. The use would only seem to be in a specific, stealthy, highly planned/coordinated attack perpetrated on an unsuspecting victim(s) using very common human behaviors and responses to them.

[that is, when someone starts to stumble, we tend to try and stop their fall, especially when our job is an attendent of some sort; when someone violates our personal space in a predictable, but non-violent manner (pinches one's butt, for example) we tend to turn and slap the person or brush the hand off--not do some martial arts spin and stance]

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Moonduck

Um, smooth, that's not a gun then. It's closer to a speargun or some other non-CPR weapon (Chemically Propelled Round). At that point it falls under different legislature.

smooth

Thanks, Moonduck, your point is well taken.

I was illustrating how a relatively low velocity projectile could be lethal in the right circumstances.

A weapon limited to that specific criteria may not need as high a tolerance of heat or pressure as you suggested.

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onetime2

Wow I didn't realize the first paragraph said so much. Those are a lot of implications within the statement "suffice the needs of a terrorists hijacking something".

Hijacking something (post 9/11 more than ever) takes more than just killing an unsuspecting flight attendant or two. How would you propose that they get through the cockpit doors without drawing attention to themselves? My point was that as soon as there was ANY indication that something was wrong they'd be set upon by passengers. The weapon you describe would be ineffective. You made no mention nor implied anything about stopping power. That's why I brought it up.

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