Keeping Plastic Weapons Out of Airports

In 1986, Washington columnist Jack Anderson reported that “Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi is in the process of buying more than 100 plastic handguns that would be difficult for airport security forces to detect.” Congress responded with the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988, which banned the manufacture, import, possession, and transfer of firearms not detectable by security devices.

Representative Steve Israel and Senator Charles Schumer, both Democrats of New York, are rallying support to reauthorize the Undetectable Firearms Act, which was renewed in 1998 and again 10 years ago. As a statement of both law and public purpose, the bill should be updated. Israel’s bill would prohibit any firearm or magazine that is not detectable by a metal detector or that fails to present an accurate image when examined by an X-ray machine. Both previous reauthorizations of the law received overwhelming bipartisan support. Not even the National Rifle Association opposed them.