Wait.
Cluricaun said
NOT
Read carefully, people.
Since this is GQ I’d like to also address this issue on a purely logical basis. Fewer available guns would imply that to maintain the same rate of gun crimes there would have to be more crimes per gun on average. So the implication is that there is some limit on the number of crimes that can be comitted with each gun that would reduce the number of gun crimes as the number of available gun crimes went down. What is this restriction?
I am told that in Wyoming, there are high school gun clubs, in which kids bring their guns to school. The difference is, their parents have beat into them the importance of the idea that the gun is a tool to be respected and protected, a lot like a power saw. You don’t your shirt, and you don’t point your gun at your buddy.
I never cease to be amazed at gun control’s opponents to be virulently opposed to absolutley any idea that impinges on the purity of their guns.
C’mon folks! The OP’s idea certainly is not perfect but it seems possible with today’s technology and in NO WAY affects your guns as far as usability and availability.
So what if a zillion guns are already out there? May as well get started on irradiating (or whatever) guns today. Sooner or later it will have an effect even if it takes a few decades.
Saying it is not a perfect solution is like saying no third brake light on cars is worthless because it has not stopped all traffic accidents. Was a third brake the the best solution to a problem? I don’t know. Maybe the money spent adjusting manufacturing lines would have been better spent on driver education. But in the end it came and went without a blip.
For a gun manufacturer to get special “tagged” metal (assuming it is possible) they would buy it from some steel producer. I bet if such a thing was mandated it may cost millions to work into the system but the end impact on consumers would be negligible. At worst a price spike that would disappear over time.
There will never be a “perfect” solution to gun control. If we have guns available some bad apples will use them in ways we do not like and will work to circumvent controls. Some people use cars in inappropriate manners. That does not mean we should just throw up our hands and say, “Well, we can’t stop all bad things with one solution so let’s just not try at all.”
Part of doing things such as this is to make doing “bad” things harder. Some people will manage anyway but you do what you can to raise the bar.
How would raising the cost of businesses operating expenses several million dollars have a negligible impact on the end consumer? Do you expect that companies like Colt and Winchester (who happen to be major government contractors and suppliers to our military) to absorb the cost of this new technology? They would be put of out business overnight if they didn’t pass those costs on to the end consumer. Even if they did pass those costs along it would make the product so prohibitively expensive as to put them out of business in a matter of weeks. Something like that does not dissappear over time.
Say Winchester makes 1 million guns per year. A $10 million cost increase for the new metal in manufacture averages to $10 per gun extra. Hardly worth getting your panties in a twist over. Granted I am making those numbers up but spread across all buyers those millions are not so much.
And generally costs decrease over time. There is an initial spike in price as suppliers add new (whatever) to design and manufacture the new whatever. In time that initial investment is paid off as well as competitors jumping into the market. End result is a price drop although it may never be as low as the “old” product since there is something extra being done in this case.
It is completely unclear what problem this is attempting to address however. You made an accident comparison above. This measure is not an attempt to reduce accidents unless there were some hijackings spurred by a passenger finding his misplaced Smith & Wesson in his jacket mid-flight that I missed.
Other people made this point but I don’t think some of you are getting it. Guns really aren’t like other consumer goods when it comes to cycling through the system with a high replacement rate. The whole industry is based around standards, reliability, and longevity not seen elsewhere. If you find a 1950’s car that has been well-cared for over the years, you could drive it and it might feel like a worn, charming old car. If you grab a 1950’s Remington rifle that has been cared for, it may look a little different but there is nothing old about the function or reliability. It can stand up to its modern counterparts quite well and it will be around for indefinitely if it is simply stored in a dry place. Take it out of the closet in 2056, drive down to the Wal-Mart to by some ammo (ammo is completely standardized as well and will be available just fine then) and you are good to go.
The major point is a larger one. If you have your new super-gun detector with people walking through it all day, what can you conclude if it doesn’t go off? Jack shit because every single person could be walking through with an older handgun.
Now let’s ask again what we are trying to accomplish. I believe the answer is to stop someone from taking a newer gun into an airport, courthouse etc., getting passed the existing detectors and screening but getting tripped up by this new costly gadget. Tell me why somebody would do that when they can just select one from their collection that doesn’t have the device.
Another thing to keep in mind is, with huge investment in terms money and other resources, how are you going to standardize the technology so that it is effective and relevant 10, 20, or 50 years down the road? This isn’t something that you should just implement and decide to figure out something else later. You have millions upon millions of dollars invested and lots of human capital as well so it still better look like a good solution in 2025.
As an aside I am curious at the remarks of how guns have amazingly long lives as a workable item. If all guns last 50+ years and are about as effective as a new one how the hell to gun manufactuers stay in business? People just endlessly add to their collections?
Several posters have already presented specific, well-grounded points as to why this notion, even if it was feasible, would have little if no effect. (For what it’s worth, an increasing number of firearms are being built with polymer composite frames or receivers, and doping these with some kind of radioactive would be no difficult feat.)
The real issue is that it doesn’t actually solve a problem–that being random shootings–and distracts from other efforts that might be effective. If we assume for the moment that you could put this policy in place and that the majority of guns are so identified–so what? So a student can’t sneak a gun into the school. What about into a football game, or track meet, or at the mall. Are you going to have these turnstile entries in all public places? How are you going to positively identify firearms versus other natural and artificial sources of radiation? How are you going to cope with false negatives–say, from someone who just spilled a banana smoothie on her shirt–without creating constant stopages and havoc? Et cetera, et cetera.
On the other hand, you could make greater efforts to identify and isolate the causes of random shootings–bullying, abuse, social dissociation, mental illness. Or you could attempt to ban and confiscate all civilian-owned firearms entirely; an ill-advised and likely-to-fail task in the United States, but at least it would have the virtue of being direct and and having a measurable efficacy versus some well-intentioned but insubstantial plan to make detectible firearms and wait for existing firearms to “age out”.
Regarding the notion that the percentage of legally-owned firearms correlates to the amount of crime, only a tiny fraction of a percent of firearms are used in crimes, and excepting domestic disputes, many firearms are used repeatedly in crimes. Confiscating or prohibiting legal ownership of firearms would reduce usage in crime only to the extent that criminals are able to finagle or steal them from legal sources, and would have the consequence of rendering people who would otherwise use a firearm for legitimate self-defense unable to do so. The effort that would be put into elaborate schemes to control, reduce, or confiscate the pool of legally-owned firearms would be better spent upon education, poverty remediation, rehabilitation of habitual offenders, mental health initiatives, et cetera. The real danger of gun control isn’t that advocates are evil Nazis who want to make everyone defenseless; it’s that it distracts from the real and difficult issues behind violent crime in favor of a position that fits on a bumper sticker or works as a campaign slogan.
Stranger
Gun manufacturers stay in business by creating innovations (both real and percieved) in firearms technology. For instance, twenty years ago most police officers carried revolvers, predominantly Colt and Smith & Wesson .38Spl and .357Magnum. Today, you’ll find very, very few police with wheelguns; in the intervening period, your average state police has gone from a S&W Model 586 (.357 Magnum) to a Beretta Model 92 (9mm) to a S&W 4006 (.40 S&W), to a Glock G31 (.357Sig), despite the fact that the .357 Mag provided the best empircal stopping power and sufficient firepower for most engagements. The FBI has gone through at least 4 different standard issue firearms since 1987, and most law enforcement agencies have followed suit, with the commercial market in tow. Then there’s the competition shooting market; everybody and their dog has come out with their own refinement of the .45 ACP 1911-frame pistol, even though the design is over 80 years old. Without such promotion, the market would mature out, and in fact that’s an issue with hunting rifles, where innovation is hard to sell and the American manufacturers have dropped from a couple of dozen to a number that can be counted on one hand.
The first handgun I learned to shoot was built before WWII, and despite regular usage was able to blackball targets at 25 yards reliably. A revolver that isn’t subject to abuse can withstand ten or twenty thousand rounds, and a well-made autoloading pistol that isn’t fed a diet of excess pressure rounds can be expected to operate indefinitely. The only major wear parts on firearms are the recoil springs, firing pin, and perhaps magazines, all of which can be replaced cheaply and easily. (Barrels wear, but except for automatic firearms or those shooting hypervelocity wildcat rounds don’t need to be replaced in anything like a normal lifespan.)
It’s conceivable that firearms made today could still be in use–baring obsolescence of ammunition–one hundred years from now. No doubt by that time HK and Ruger will be promoting their new, 900m/s Fin-Stabilized, Electromagnetically Boost-Assisted, Gyroscopically-Compensated, Auto-Assisted Aiming 6.35mm Discarding Sabot Flechette Pistols, but I’ll find it surprising if their isn’t a contingent of die-hard 1911 adherents still quoting Jeff Cooper (as a bloodthirsty version of Ambrose Bierce) at the slightest provocation.
Stranger
Even easier, and more permanent: put the gun (unloaded, dummy!) in the microwave for one second. That’s all it takes to fry an RFID chip (or any other piece of unshielded electronics).
Different isotopes emit different types of radiation, at different energies. It won’t be too difficult to come up with a combination that’s unique and easily distinguishable. I think the hard part is making it easily detectable yet safe to handle.
Actually, you’d be suprised. Photography can work that way too. I own… off the top of my head… six different cameras. A 35mm Canon Rebel, a Fujifilm APS point-and-shoot, a 35mm Pentax K-1000, two Asashi Pentax Spotmatics, and the built-in digital camera in my Palm Zire. On top of this, I have I think 5 interchangable lenses for the Canon and the Spotmatics, two hotshoe flashes, two tripods, six lens filters, two lens hoods, a remote shutter cable, and a box of black-and-white photo paper.
Certainly this is more than enough camera gear for anyone, right? Probably. Around Christmas, I’m buying a Canon 20D Digital SLR, and some time later I’m thinking of getting an old Canonet rangefinder camera… and that Pentax K10D looks pretty sweet too…
In my experience, photographers and gun owners have a lot in common. They oftentimes spend way too much money on their hobby, can go through impressive amounts of dangerous chemicals (guns use gunpowder, of course, and film cameras rely on various “soups” of toxic chemicals to process the film and prints with), are prone to impractically large collections, and are often looked apon with wariness and concern by people around them when walking around with pieces of their collection. 
Not to mention that either one can ruin your day if not your life at will 
If the telltale was radioactive, what’s to stop me from buying thin lead sheets and lining a pouch with it so I can carry it through one of these detectors? Then once in the building going to the first bathroom, into a stall and removing gun from pouch and putting it in holster? If the radiation is weak enough not to harm flesh it probably won’t take much lead to block it thus meaning you have wasted millions of dollars and many many man hours on a useless idea.
Others have already said how easy it is to defeat any chip if it was a chip system.
I would think the “magic metal” detector would need to be incorporated in to existing metal detectors since, as rightly mentioned, it would take many years for enough “new” guns to be out to maybe even start making a dent. I presume a metal detector woud pick up the lead pouch.
As I noted above no system is perfect and certainly there will be ways to defeat it. There always are. I think the point is to raise the bar on how “easy” it is to carry guns into places you shouldn’t. Is airport security foolproof? Nope but we do it anyway.
I realize there will not be detectors over evey door in the world and bad people will still find ways to do bad things with guns. While I am no expert I cannot think a detector would cost all that much. Here is one for $100 (cite). I suppose our fancy one would cost more but I doubt it’d be much at all in relation to the overall device cost.
Remember the OP is looking for a way to get metal detectors, if not gone, at least turned “down” so they don’t beep at underwire bras and such. Perhaps someday this would do it and speed the line through the airport and such.
There is no funcitonal ‘tell’ system because there is always one way of defeating it: make a gun without it. You can outfit a garage into a small home machine shop for under $20K and even if you burn all the books and kill all the people who know what they’re doing somebody somewhere is going to start making guns. If not because of the newly created lucrative market then on principle alone. The less guns there are the more psychological power each one of them has.
A note to mods: The GQ was already answered here as far as I can tell, maybe it’s time to move it to GD or close it.
Airport security is pretty foolproof - billions spent, hundreds of thousands employed and most people think it at least does something. That sounds pretty foolproof as far as things like that go.
This is a simple detector designed to alert the users to immediately hazardous (i.e. very high) amounts of radiation. Unless you are planning to use high level radioactive waste in your proposed handgun (which would be a singular suggestion for the disposal of said waste) you are going to need something not only significantly more sensitive but also able to discern between the types and relative energies of radiation. Not infeasible, but significantly more complex.
Stranger
Not even close: