My dumb question of the day - who makes the gas?

[rurallib]

who makes the gas that was used in Syria? I know there seems to be caches of poison gas around the world. Why have these not been destroyed? Is there not treaties to do so?

But mostly I am curious who makes the gas and how they can do so without being stopped?
For some reason I have a feeling that someone in the US does with approval(?) from our gov't.

[rug]

1. Excellent question. Follow the trail of manufacture and distribution.

Unless this is more about sending messages than stopping chemical weapons.

[MindPilot]

2. That's been in my mind too...why are chemical weapons even manufactured?

If they are completely banned, why do they even exist? Why haven't existing stockpiles been destroyed?

You cannot tell me, with the huge surveillance and intelligence infrastructure, that some three-letter government agency doesn't already know where this stuff is being made and how it's being shipped.

[Recursion]

5. I don't think any company makes sarin per se

But they make trichloronitromethane and the pseudo halogenic compound cyanogen, which mixed together make sarin (those aren't the actual precursors, but bonus points if you can name the movie that's from).

[HooptieWagon]

3. Many companies make the precursers...

the ingredients so to speak. These are shipped to the country using the CW. In some cases, they can be mixed and stored for use, like mustard gas which has a fairly long shelf-life. In the case of sarin, which has a short shelf-life, the precursers are mixed just prior to loading into the shells which must be used within a few days or weeks. Another method is to load the precursers into separate chambers in the shell, and they are mixed during flight or upon impact. This method is technically more complex, but has a much longer shelf-life.
That is a summary of a little reading I did a few days ago. What I didn't find out is how regulated sales of the precursers are. Some have legitimate uses other than CW...but it would make sense to at least be tracking sales of them.

[Recursion]

4. The precursors all have legit industrial uses

They're made by the usual suspects, Dow, DuPont, and a whole bunch of German companies. But the stuff that goes in to sarin is individually stuff that's used in factories and farms every day. Even weaponized they are usually kept separate until the round is actually fired.