Nothing short of a full body cavity search will ever be good enough.
Ceramic guns don’t exist…And even if they did, they would still have to have metal parts (springs and the like) to function…not to mention bullets…
There was a lot of talk in the 80’s about plastic guns…The myth was that since Glock pistols had plastic frames that they were undetectable by metal detectors (as examplified by the movie Die Hard 2), and there was a big move to make these guns illegal…A bill was passed in Congress to prohibit the sale and manufacture of undetectable firearms in America…Of course, this had no effect on the Glock, which had a metal slide and barrel, and is now used by like 65% of the law enforcement agencies in the US…
For a fictionalized account of what might go into making an detectable gun, check out the movie In The Line of Fire with Clint Eastwood…
A true undetectable gun would be one that looked like something harmless, like a cell phone or a pager…these do exist, but I image it would be difficult to hold a planeful of passengers at bay with one…
Nondetectable knives are easier…ceramic, plastic, bone, glass, even wood will hold an point long enough to kill someone…And even if you can’t get anything onto the plane, you can probably find something there that will work…The only way to prevent damage from these kinds of weapons is to have a way of dealing with it on the plane itself, and I’m not sure what that should be…
Sky Marshals.
I mean, unless you have a whole gaggle of whackos, one Sky Marshal with good aim can take them out. He has a gun.
Of course, that wouldn’t prevent said whackos from harming other passengers with their plastic/ceramic knives, but it would seem like it would be difficult for them to get the pilot out of the cockpit.
Supposedly, ever since Israel put Sky Marshals on each of their flights, none of their planes have ever been hijacked. At least that’s what they said on the news recently.
And it’s been said repeatedly of course, but hijacking attempts involving knives are going to be a whole lot more troublesome to pull off now.
Sky Marshals will be a dandy idea, as long as they’re not the minimum-wage rent-a-cop model of most security guards. My favorite security guard story was from a cow orker’s account of a previous job, where they would regularly forget their guns in the bathroom, and one wound up shooting himself in the foot, practicing his quick-draw. You get what you pay for, sometimes.
I don’t know about ceramic, but I’ve been nicked by many plastic knives, pencils, new combs. And they have bullet-proof plastic for fighter windows, that can be shaped with a simple file.
But you don’t even need that. Prisoners have been released from our strongest prisons by using guns made of soap covered with shoe polish.
AFAIK, none of the above would be undetectable. Bone shows up quite nicely on X-rays, for example – ever been to a doctor? Rugged plastics and the like also show up. Anything dense enough to be useful as a weapon will generally give a positive return on X-ray scan. They might not be quite as obvious as metal, which is opaque to X-rays, but there will be a clear outline of the weapon on the fluoroscope. The only way to defeat this is to have a weapon that’s disguised as something common.
The real point of vulnerability is the metal detectors they run people through. They’ll pick up firearms with some non-metallic components, but that’s about it. People aren’t willing to be X-rayed themselves since repeated exposure to radiation is a bad thing, neither will they want to be frisked every time they board a plane. We need a new solution.
A cool non-detectable weapon will be a compact disk shattered right before use, or a sharpened credit card.
An even better, even less-detectable weapon would be claiming that you had a bomb on board, when you really didn’t. Would people be willing to risk calling your bluff?
SPOOFE, a barometric device could be thwarted, it would seem, if the cargo hold were pressurized.
Not if you conceal it on your person so it doesn’t get put through the x-ray machine.
Sky marshals would have to be rigorously vetted; you’re going to let a guy with a gun on the plane, best make absolutely sure he’s on your side.