Security metal detectors

For many years now, security metal detectors have been employed and deployed to secure areas of concern, such as public buildings and airports. These metal detectors were supposed to trace weapons, mainly guns, concealed under clothing and prevent people from bringing any such weapons into the secured areas. Unfortunately this security measure has proven to be not sufficiently successful in preventing perpetrators from committing atrocities.
For instance, after the Columbine High School massacre, all schools in the United States installed metal detectors and mandatory searches in order to prevent any such occurrences in future; interestingly enough, the statistics show that since then school shootings increased in numbers, culminating in the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 with a death toll of 33.
Metal detectors detect metal, not weapons, and this may be the main flaw of this apparatus. Austrian company Glock GmbH, is a very popular manufacturer of weapons. They produce many handguns, some of them are made out of a polymer which does show in x-ray machines, but is not detected by metal detectors. Some components of their handguns still have metal parts, but a gun aficionado can easily dismantle the gun and hide the small metal parts where these cannot be thoroughly recognized as a part of a weapon. Most of the gun can be concealed on the body and remain undetected. Other companies which provide similar polymer weapons include Heckler & Koch and Remington.
During the 9/11 attacks, the terrorists apparently were able to smuggle box cutters, all metal, through metal detectors and x-ray machines, prompting for improvements in airport security. Unfortunately these improvements resulted in further harassment towards the passengers and long waiting lines to board a plane, but no further, similar ploy was prevented by these measures, simply because none was instigated by terroristic fractions. Further consequences of these measures were reduced use of airplanes by customers and bankruptcy of many airline companies.
If security metal detectors are effective, why do they fail each and every time when it matters? Why is it so easy for perpetrators to circumvent the security measures and metal detectors in particular?
Perhaps the security measures deployed are not efficient enough because the reliance on metal detectors is set too high. The efficiency of a working tool is limited by the person handling it, maybe the security personnel is not efficient enough? In any case, there were significant improvements in the security metal detecting industry since the 9/11 attacks and most secured areas which employ these new machines report significant security increase and weapon detection capabilities.

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