Here's an opportunity to sucker punch the GOP

[Felix Mala]

There's a technology that allows explosives manufacturers to put tracer codes in all explosives. They can then be used to track how and where explosives were used. We need to propose passing it in this country and getting an international treaty going. Then we'll know where the terrorists are getting their supplies. The trouble is, although this technology, and it's pretty low tech, has been around for some time, the NRA would never let their puppets in Congress and the White House support it. Imagine, something so simple with tangible safety benefits and the right having to do a double backwards curly Q twist to oppose it and yet continue to say they are the party that keeps Americans safer.

[Old and In the Way]

1. IIRC, Republicans defeated this when Clinton was President.

Guess they don't want to trace the origin of the explosives. So much for their War on Violent Extremism.

[jayfish]

5. Some Info For You.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/30/clinton.terrorism/index.html

<SNIP>
But while the president pushed for quick legislation, Republican lawmakers hardened their stance against some of the proposed anti-terrorism measures.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, doubted that the Senate would rush to action before they recess this weekend. The Senate needs to study all the options, he said, and trying to get it done in the next three days would be tough.

One key GOP senator was more critical, calling a proposed study of chemical markers in explosives "a phony issue."
</SNIP>

Jay

[SlipperySlope]

2. Keep this stuff out of my gunpowder.

What crimes in the United States would this have prevented?

Oklahoma City?
September 11th?

Feel free to put these in plastic explosives, but leave my gunpowder alone.

[Silverhair]

3. Problems

I think that is already done with USA made explosives. NRA has no problem with something like that. Getting EVERYONE of the countries in the world to do it would be extremely difficult - like IMPOSSIBLE. For that matter, most explosives can be traced by minute differences in the chemical residue, and most of the ME bombs are using former East Bloc explosives.

Also, explosives aren't that hard to make. The OKC bombing and the 1st WTC bombing were with homemade explosives. While those were ANFO explosives, high explosive recipes and directions are available on the internet. Many of them use common chemicals. Some even use household stuff.

If you have the common run of the mill stuff in your place, you can make a bomb.

[Richard Steele]

4. BIGGER problem: It doesn't WORK.

It was tried as a test program; turns out the taggants are so small and long-lived that they are EVERYWHERE now.

Searching a bombing site would reveal taggants from explosives used miles away and years earlier.

Searching a city street TODAY will turn up taggants still floating about from the 1977-80 beta test.

[Silverhair]

6. That IS a bigger problem. NT

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Richard Steele]

8. Take yer SPAM somewhere else, please; this is NOT the place for it!

[newyawker99]

12. Hi civisamerican!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[fob]

9. But you would find much MORE taggants from the new bomb than

from "background" explosions. It's like any crime scene, there are more than enough "contaminants" but the crime scene still generates it's own unique debris.

[Richard Steele]

10. Maybe, maybe not....it is not at all certain.

Taggants in the new bomb are being blown away from the blast;
they are going to drift upward in the rising heated air, and gradually be dispersed across a wide area.
Meanwhile, old taggants are being sucked along TOWARD the blast
by the cooler air rushing in at ground level.

In a circumstance such as an open-air explosion near a recent construction site, you would actually find many more taggants from the construction than from the bomb.

INSIDE a building?
The CONCRETE the building is made from
would be FULL of taggants from the
mining operations which produced it.

And the biggest drawback:
Taggants must be FINDEABLE.
So if the FBI can find them at a blast site,
then terrorists can find them IN THE EXPLOSIVES,
and remove them before use.

Taggants SEEM like a good idea.
Unfortunately, it's a good idea which won't actually accomplish anything USEFUL in the real world.

[fob]

11. It seems like you've predetermined their usefulness. It doesn't matter

where a bomb goes off, it goes off in a predictable pattern and educated searchers can determine that pattern and narrow their search. It's similar to blood spray patterns, a crime scene can be awfully bloody but people are still able to figure out where someone was standing and how a particular instrument was swung by the castoff. You say blood is blood is blood and to search through it is pointless. I say some blood tells one story, other blood other stories and in that analogy so would taggants. STOP a crime? Probably not, but help SOLVE a crime, hell yeah.

I agree to disagree with your assumptions as you are to mine.

:toast:

[Richard Steele]

13. I'm not trying to "predetermine" anything...

I'm just reporting the results of some actual trials that were carried out.

Since you mentioned "solving crimes", I feel that I should mention
one area where I feel taggants could be useful.
That is: tracing STOCKPILES of explosives which are found to be
"in the wrong hands", shall we say.

Most cops will admit that the serial #s on firearms
do little to help solve crimes;
tracking a STOLEN weapon back to its rightful owner
doesn't often do much to solve any crime.

EXPLOSIVES in the hands of TERRORISTS are a very different matter.

As terrorist types tend to operate in very insular networks,
being able to trace explosives to their point of origin
could be VERY valuable info indeed.
Even if they were stolen,
simply knowing WHEN and WHERE they were stolen
might be useful to someone who is trying to discover
an entire NETWORK of "bad guys".