Undetectable guns: Congress ready to renew the ban

WASHINGTON (AP) — Racing a midnight deadline, Congress is ready to renew the expiring ban on plastic firearms that can evade airport detection machines.

But lawmakers are sure to reject toughening those restrictions — the latest defeat for gun-control forces in the year since the grade-school massacre in Newtown, Conn.

The Senate planned to give final congressional approval later this evening to a 10-year extension of the prohibition against guns that can slip past metal detectors and X-ray machines. The quarter-century-old ban has been renewed twice and would expire Tuesday without action.

But first, senators were set to defeat an effort by Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to strengthen the ban by requiring that such weapons contain undetachable metal parts. Some plastic guns meet the letter of current law with a metal piece that can be removed, making them a threat to be slipped past security screeners at schools, airports and elsewhere.

"Who in God's name wants to let plastic guns pass through metal detectors at airports or stadiums?" Schumer said in an interview today.