As one might expect following the tragedy of TWA’s Flight 800 and the pipe bomb that disrupted the Olympics, new methods of dealing with terrorism have become lively political issues.

Consider these ideas:

A hand-held scanner that permits authorities at airports, and anywhere else for that matter, to peer through a suspect’s clothes like Superman’s X-ray eyes to detect concealed guns or bombs.

A national law to permit abused spouses, the victims of stalkers and just plain law-abiding citizens to pack a concealed hand weapon for pumping hot lead into terrorists, murderers, rapists and street muggers.

Chemical markers that would enable police to quickly identify the manufacturer and retailer that sold explosives to a bomber.

There is evidence that all three of those ideas would reduce the risk of violence to Americans. Each proposal, alas, is ensnarled in political controversy and probably will end up on the cutting room floor.

Anybody who is following Maine’s Senate race knows that Joe Brennan wants to require explosives manufacturers to place chemical markers, or taggants, into all materials that could be used as a bomb. That includes gunpowder. The National Rifle Association opposes the use of taggants, saying chemical markers might cause some forms of smokeless gunpowder to become unstable. The House of Representatives voted 389-22 earlier this summer to delete the taggant mandate from the Clinton administration’s new anti-terrorism bill. Both of Maine’s House members — Democrat John Baldacci and Republican Jim Longley — sided with the NRA. They favor more study to determine if there is any risk, however small, that the mixture of taggants with gunpowder might cause ammunition to overexplode in the faces of hunters.

Overlooking Baldacci’s transgression, Brennan blasted Collins for toeing the NRA line. He pointed out that taggants have led to more than 500 arrests in bomb cases in Europe, where the chemical markers have been in wide use for the past 15 years.

Collins accused Brennan of ignoring a potential life-threatening danger to Maine sportsmen. Steve Abbott, Collins’ campaign manager, said Brennan failed to point out that most of the European countries do not put taggants in gunpowder, only in dynamite and other forms of industrial explosives. Collins has no objection to that, he said.

And how about this revealing way of dealing with terrorism:

Massachusetts-based Millimetrix Corp., with a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. government, has developed a high-tech camera that enables security personnel to look through a suspect’s clothes. According to The Washington Times, the company is being flooded with calls from anti-terrorism officials all over the world.

Enter the American Civil Liberties Union.

“[This technology] is an incredible invasion of privacy,” said Don Haines, ACLU’s Washington lobbyist. “It produces a virtual 3-D image, and you can see the contours of breasts, buttocks and genitals.”

You have to wonder what turns this guy on. The photo in The Washington Times showed the fuzzy white outline of a body that bore little resemblance to the scenes I savor in my Victoria’s Secret catalog.

Campaign aides to Collins and Brennan said they did not know enough to comment on the “looking-through-your-clothes” controversy.

The most intriguing new proposal to deal with domestic terrorism comes from a new study by two University of Chicago professors, John Lott and David Mustard. By domestic terrorism I mean disgruntled postal employees who take out their co-workers with AK-47 assault rifles and those increasingly frequent massacres at popular fast-food restaurants.

Lott and Mustard did an extensive analysis of FBI crime statistics over the past 15 years in the 31 states that allow law-abiding citizens to pack heat. Maine is one of those states. They found that murders declined by an average of 8.5 percent after the adoption of more liberal concealed-weapons statutes. Rape and aggravated assault fell by 5 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

More importantly, gun accidents did not increase in the 31 concealed-weapon states. In 1992 there were 1,409 accidental firearm deaths. Of that number only 546 occurred in the 31 states where citizens have the right to pack a gun, compared with 863 accidental gun deaths in the 19 states that bar concealed weapons. A national “right-to-pack-heat” law, the professors concluded, would result in a projected 1,570 annual decline in gun deaths; 4,177 fewer rapes; and a 60,000 reduction in aggravated assaults.

That’s a pretty good anti-crime program.

Of course, the idea of an armed citizenry is heresy to the gun control crowd, which has succeeded in disarming virtually all the law-abiding citizens in big cities like Washington, D.C. Except for police, the only people here with guns are teen-age gangs, drug dealers, street muggers and liberal gun control columnists like Carl Rowen, who blasted a white teen-ager in the foot with his Beretta a few years ago after catching the kid trespassing in his swimming pool.

Abbot said Collins is happy with Maine’s concealed-weapon law. Aides to Brennan had no comment on the packing-heat issue. — WASHINGTON