The problem with "getting the materials" is a multi-part problem. First you need some sort of nuclear power plant because plutonium is not a naturally occurrin

The problem with "getting the materials" is a multi-part problem. First you need some sort of nuclear power plant because plutonium is not a naturally occurring element in any quantity. Once you have this and attempt to purchase uranium on the open market you can face being blacklisted. Do you know why this is the case? Because the jump from uranium to plutonium is actually easy. The second is you need to use a specific reactor design. Again referencing the article some designes can be targeted to produce plutionium. This is where the bulk of the US plutonium came from. But again, all reactors produce plutonium because even "enriched uranium" contains both U235 and U238. U235 splits and creates energy and free nutrons, U238 captures nutrons and transmutes to plutonium. Reactors like what we have here (Canada) actually "burn" plutonium and are not really suitable but yet India got its plutonium this way "India's first nuclear explosion in 1974 used plutonium from a heavy water reactor that was a gift from the Canadian government." As an added "negative" our reactors also produce Tritium which Canada refuses to sell to anyone who intends to use it for weapons. > fuel for reactors does not contain enough fissile materials to present a problem which is why the security around it can be much more lax. This covers "reactor grade plutonium" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactor-grade_plutonium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactor-grade_plutonium I'm not sure security is "lax".. the nuclear power plant near me has armed guards 24x7 and "deadly force authorized" signs. It also provides citations of how this was actually used to build a 20KT proof of concept weapon. You are mixing Plutonium vs Uranium devices to suit your needs. Sometimes you reference "pits" which are plutonium devices, sometimes you reference "gun" which are antiquated uranium devices. I don't know if a "suitcase nuke" can use uranium given its "critical mass" is 107 LBS. On top of this you need a "gun" to launch the two together with sufficient speed. "Suitcase" nukes are almost guaranteed to be plutonium based because its critical mass is just 22 lbs and is far more destructive.