Bombing Investigation Severely Hampered by NRA! Demand Congress ACT!

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. Again, you ignore the basics and underlying tech

Start with Wikipedia, it may ease some of your ignorance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taggant

Many building products have explosives used in fabrication and those plastic taggants will be disbursed throughout the environment within a decade. Those are different than the tracer chemicals required in all explosives in this country and work fairly well.

Government sponsored research in the 1970s and early 1980s found taggants to be potentially very dangerous, as they were found to increase chemical activity and prompt spontaneous combustion when mixed with some propellants. Nothing has been done to develop different taggants that do not have those problems.

The law enforcement benefits of tagging black and smokeless powders are also questionable. Consider that a single batch of gunpowder is normally distributed in half-pound or one-pound cans which can end up all over the country in the hands of 25,000 or more users. Also such small amounts are not tracked. If there is a person of interest, any gunpowder in their possession can be chemically matched to what was used, providing the same information as taggants.

I don't have a problem with taggants provided they are truly inert and safe. However, I have realistic expectations for them. They are not a magic bullet and will have a limited useful life.