Bombing Investigation Severely Hampered by NRA! Demand Congress ACT!

[FourScore]

Wed Apr 17, 2013 at 06:31 PM PDT
Bombing Investigation Severely Hampered by NRA! Demand Congress ACT!
by SemDem

I have been on hiatus for a month but this has gotten me so angry I have to write....

The NRA has once again stopped the most FUNDAMENTAL background check for owning an assault rifle---no doubt with many fence-sitting GOP senators hoping the front-page publicity of this awful terror attack will shield them from potential fallout.

The same day that the NRA's GOP minions decided that it was okay for a violent criminal to shoot me in the face, I discover that the Boston investigators are blocked from doing a thorough investigation because of the NRA and their allies.

Identification taggants are used to make it possible to trace explosive materials after detonation back to the source of the bomb. It is simple, cheap, and allows tracing to a point of sale. Law enforcement, the ATF, and others have pleaded for it. Clinton tried to make it mandatory after the OK City bombing. Current experts say it would have helped with the current investigation.

WHO would POSSIBLY oppose this technology?
The same idiots who oppose a background check for a killing machine....



MSNBC:

One avenue of investigation is already closed off to forensic officials working the Boston Marathon bombing case due to efforts dating back decades by the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers.

The FBI said Tuesday that gunpowder, along with pieces of metal and ball bearings, were packed into at least one pressure cooker and another device to make the crude bombs that killed three people—including an 8-year-old boy—and wounded more than 170 more during the Boston Marathon Monday.

But a crucial piece of evidence called a taggant that could be used to trace the gunpowder used in the bombs to a buyer at a point of sale is not available to investigators.

“If you had a good taggant this would be a good thing for this kind of crime. It could help identify the point of manufacturer, and chain of custody,” Bob Morhard, an explosives consultant and chief executive officer of Zukovich, Morhard & Wade, LLC., in Pennsylvania, who has traced explosives and detonators in use in the United States and Saudi Arabia, told MSNBC.com. “The problem is nobody wants to know what the material is.”

Explosives manufacturers are required to place tracing elements known as identification taggants only in plastic explosives but not in gunpowder, thanks to lobbying efforts by the NRA and large gun manufacturing groups.

This is nothing new. The ATF has complained that the long-unsolved Unabomber case along with the WTC, Atlanta, and OK City bombing investigations could have been significantly helped with taggant technology. For pete's sake, this was an article back in the LA Times in 1995:

Technology to help investigators trace the origin of explosives after bombings such as the one in Oklahoma City was developed more than 15 years ago, but the National Rifle Assn. and others, citing safety concerns, have lobbied successfully over the years to block its implementation.

The article was written 18 years ago... so this technology is well over 30 years old. But the NRA blocks it each time. WHY? The NRA actually claims it affects the trajectory of bullets (utter BS), and amounts to a "de facto" form of gun registration (really?). Both wonderful reasons why teams of investigators have to add weeks to their investigation combing through a city street for clues when they could possibly have had a lead already.

OBAMA NEEDS TO GET SERIOUS!

He should call for Harry Reid to introduce legislation TODAY to allow taggants in gun powder.

LET the f*ing NRA fight it! Let the GOP Senators filibuster it!! GO on... I'll wait....

THEN introduce background checks. AGAIN! Then introduce allowing taggants... AGAIN!! Rinse. Repeat.

All the way to 2014!!!

It's time people know whose side the NRA is really on: the side of violent shooters and terrorists. It's the only way things will change.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/17/1202707/-Bombing-Investigation-Severely-Hampered-by-NRA-Demand-Congress-ACT

[Turbineguy]

1. NRA

is the republican acronym for violent population control.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. That is mostly hyperbole from MSNBC/Kos

There was a report attributed to a pol that there were "tracers" present in the bomb. No way to tell if that was true or not.

Post event taggants are waning in popularity and will have a limited life for practical reasons. Both the explosives industry and gun groups fought taggants and they are not present in either smokeless/black powder.

You do know how easy it is to make black powder?

[Hoyt]

3. Who cares how easy it is to make black powder? Most outgrew wanting to blowup or shoot stuff

a long time ago.

The NRA has always been against anything that helps track a gun (or bomb) back to the current or previous owners.

You have to wonder if folks like NRA Prez Keene support that crud because they know that they -- or their kids raised in the gun culture environment -- might shoot someone (Keene's son was convicted of shooting someone in a road rage incident).

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. The efficacy of taggants is very limited.

As usual you ignore the tech and post strawmen

[Hoyt]

5. 5% efficacy is better than none. As usual, you sound more like a gun cultist than a "professor" or a

"progressive."

[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.

[Hoyt]

7. But it is useful, unless you have something to hide.

If the explosive is home made, the fact that a taggant is not present indicates some cretin made it in their basement. So the investigation can switch gears. If it is present, at least the manufacturer might be identified helping to track down the cretin who bought it. Doesn't have to work every time, or even the majority of times.

I assume you are also totally against micro-stamping and similar technologies. The fact, a gun nut might get caught doesn't bother me a bit. I can see how you might be concerned though. You or one of your "students" might shoot an unarmed teenager or something.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

8. What part of shown to be unsafe in Gov studies did you not understand?

Or where I said I have no problem with them if they are safe?

There are no means in place to trace powder sales today and the effort to do so is untenable. Look at the failure of CA's effort to track ammunition sales

Microstamping, smart guns, and other touted magic solutions are not yet proven or even reliable. When they are, they should be considered. Until then they are phony strawmen at best.

Clearly your assumptions about me are wrong. How about clearing up a question about you...are you allowed to own firearms?

[Hoyt]

9. You guys will never accept anything that might tie a gun used in a crime to you.

You guys are afraid you might sell one to a criminal, have one stolen, need to run after shooting an innocent person, or something similar. I get it.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

10. Laughable considering what I used to do

Note that unsafe taggants would impact the police and military as well as civilians.
Again, I have no problem once they are demonstrated to be safe and there is a reasonable need. Note that my position is identical to that supported by the Nat. Academy of Science in their report on the subject, and not that of the NRA.

How about answering the question about you being allowed to own firearms?

[Hoyt]

11. FBI disagrees. If they were dangerous, safer taggants could be developed except for

gun lobby and gun cultists. Since you are not really a "professor" nor "progressive" regarding guns, I'll trust FBI, ATF, etc., before NRA types.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

12. Did you look at the Nat Acad of Science report?

and can you even own guns?