“That punk pulled a Glock 7 on me! You know what that is? It’s a porcelain gun made in Germany. It doesn’t show up on your airport X-ray machines, and it costs more than you make here in a month!”
–John McClane, Die Hard 2
Gotta love Hollywood when it comes to gun education. You’d be surprised how many times I’ve been asked about the infamous “Glock 7.”
Too bad it doesn’t exist.
The Glock frequently gets incorrectly pegged as a “plastic gun,” but the plain fact is, only certain parts are made out of plastic. The trigger and frame are largely composed of a high-impact polymer alloy that is, in fact, invisible to metal detectors. However, most of the functional parts are still made of steel.
Why? Because plastics and other synthetics simply can’t handle the impact shock and pressures that the ignition of gunpowder generates. The important stuff (the stuff that makes it a “gun”) has to be forged from steel. As such, the barrel, slide, firing pin, frame rails, screws and springs are all quite detectable, and the gun can’t function without any of those.
So, why plastic? Because it’s lighter, and it doesn’t rust or pit like steel can. It’s a good design choice, and most modern firearms makers produce models with polymer frames.
The hysteria started with a poorly-researched Washington Post article in 1985 titled, “Quaddafi Buying Austrian Plastic Pistol.” Jack Anderson, always a paragon for journalistic integrity, didn’t bother to do any fact-checking, and the rest of the press picked up on it like jackals on a zebra. The whole silly debacle culminated in the Terrorist Firearm Detection Act of 1988, in which our leaders wasted time and money outlawing something that didn’t exist based on an unfounded rumor.
(For the record, the Glock is something like 83% steel, more than many aluminum-framed pistols.)
In 1995, the whole issue was raised again, this time based on another unfounded and possibly fictional article in Modern Gun (I’ve never seen it on the stands, either). The article claimed that the CIA was working on a top-secret “glass gun.”
Again, reason was trampled by the size-16 cleats of ignorance, and Ted Kennedy rushed to protect us. Ever the expert on guns, Mr. Kennedy knocked back a few whiskey sours and demanded the renewal of the 1988 law, even though no viable prototype for such a thing has ever been produced.
For the record, there is no known synthetic with the rigidity and heat-tolerance to withstand the internal pressures that handguns (much less rifles) generate. Even the lowly .38 Special generates pressure levels around 17,000psi. Plastics are too malleable for that, and although ceramics would seem a good alternative due to their heat resistance, they lack the tensile strength to handle the shock.
So, if such things don’t (and most likely won’t) exist, why the frantic rush to ban them? Because it makes the politicians look like they are “doing something.” Perception is reality in today’s world, and it’s alot easier to shout platitudes and make empty gestures than it is to attack the root causes of violence in our society.
Following a tragic shooting, you can’t throw a rock without hitting some pundit screaming, “we must ban these instruments of mayhem!” Cue up the crowd of adoring supporters applauding in orgiastic glee. Heck, it works. It’s certainly easier and more effective than saying something along the lines of, “we need to address the societal issues that lead our children to choose a life slinging drugs rather than working for minimum wage in a percieved dead-end inner city environment.”
Yeah, that just doesn’t play as well on the evening news.