# Yet another reason to Pit the NRA - no taggants in gunpowder **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 18, 2013, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031 "2013-04-18T13:03:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/21 "2013-04-18T16:27:53Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > And really, I’m not seeing a downside to making it harder and more complicated for people to make untraceable bombs. This is the deal. You don’t have to make something impossible to get less of it; all you have to do is make it harder or more costly. This is an across-the-board principle, applicable to pretty much any human endeavor. If you make people wait in line for an hour to vote, they can still vote. But you will get less voting. If you have people who want to make untraceable bombs, you’re going to get fewer of them actually making bombs if they need to mix the stuff up themselves, even if it’s easy, than if they can buy it off the shelf. And if it requires a certain amount of practice to get good at mixing the ingredients just right, then it’ll reduce the number still further. Not doing something that’ll reduce the incidence or likelihood of a particular threat because it won’t get rid of the threat entirely is stupid. But count on **Bricker** to be stupid. He’s the SDMB’s version of Antonin Scalia. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/22 "2013-04-18T16:35:15Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > But count on **Bricker** to be stupid. He’s the SDMB’s version of Antonin Scalia. Now that’s just _nasty_. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/23 "2013-04-18T16:37:43Z")
BTW, what the heck is the NRA’s supposed interest in this? Do they believe the right to bear arms goes beyond sidearms and extends to the right to make bombs? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/24 "2013-04-18T16:41:53Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > BTW, what the heck is the NRA’s supposed interest in this? Do they believe the right to bear arms goes beyond sidearms and extends to the right to make bombs? Some firearm owners reload their own ammo. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/25 "2013-04-18T16:48:16Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > Some firearm owners reload their own ammo. Factory loaded rounds would also be tagged. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/26 "2013-04-18T16:57:30Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > It’s actually difficult to make \* good \* gunpowder. The Mythbusters tried it, and they came up with stuff that was distinctly inferior to the commercial stuff. And really, I’m not seeing a downside to making it harder and more complicated for people to make untraceable bombs. That’s correct, and so is Cal. Gunpowder (black powder) is not a chemical, it has a physical structure and has to be manufactured properly to be useful as an explosive. An amateur can mix the chemicals and produce something good enough to make a small rocket, that mix would not combust under pressure as readily as true powder. Also, it doesn’t matter, the taggants should be put in the potassium nitrate. Of course I know how to make potassium nitrate, instructions can be found on the internet too, people have been doing it for a long time. So you can’t stop everyone, and it may do no good to track down a suicide bomber with taggants, but that’s not the purpose of laws and regulations. The idea is to make it more difficult to build bombs, and to have a better chance of identifying the bomb maker should they do so anyway. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/27 "2013-04-18T17:02:05Z")
Similarly, instructions for making an atomic bomb are available on the Internet, and were available for many years before the Internet. So there’s no point in trying to keep Iran from building a nuke. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/28 "2013-04-18T17:06:44Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > BTW, what the heck is the NRA’s supposed interest in this? Do they believe the right to bear arms goes beyond sidearms and extends to the right to make bombs? In addition to reloading which has already been mentioned, lots of people use muzzle loaders. I see as many hunters if not more in the woods now during muzzle loading season as I do during rifle season. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/29 "2013-04-18T17:06:59Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > For the same reason it’s preposterous to suggest that it’s impossible to identify a flood zone because there is some background amount of water everywhere on Earth. :rolleyes: > > Just to add a few more orders of magnitude to the innumeracy of this suggestion, you _do_ know that the concept of “taggant” implies a wide variety of them with subtly different information encoded therein, right? Thus, your suggestion would not only require that the background level of “taggants” over the surface of the Earth rise to equal that found in the aftermath of a bomb blast, but that the background level of _each individual type of taggant_ would need to reach that level? > > As I said, there are sensible arguments against the idea without dragging in arrant nonsense. Taggants based on minute quantities of rare isotopic combinations would be really easy to pick out out of any background noise. It would be even easier since they have samples of combustion products from the gunpowder itself. Even if the specific taggant can’t be narrowed to a specific lot number, it would easily narrow the possible sources. It takes very little sample and below ppt concentrations for a mass spec to pick out. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/30 "2013-04-18T17:32:50Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > This is an across-the-board principle, applicable to pretty much any human endeavor. If you make people wait in line for an hour to vote, they can still vote. But you will get less voting. If you have people who want to make untraceable bombs, you’re going to get fewer of them actually making bombs if they need to mix the stuff up themselves, even if it’s easy, than if they can buy it off the shelf. And if it requires a certain amount of practice to get good at mixing the ingredients just right, then it’ll reduce the number still further. I cannot agree with this line of reasoning. Making things somewhat more difficult will keep the people who aren’t all that interested in doing something from doing it. It will not keep the extremists, who are devoted to their ideals from doing it. In fact, that’s the whole reason that the longer lines was supposed to work at all. If it stopped everyone equally, it would provide no advantage to either major candidate. In this case, the only way it would seem to stop someone would be if they only marginally wanted to build a bomb and kill people. I think it’s highly unlikely that the sort of people that would be motivated to build a bomb and blow it up at a public event now would be any less deterred by making it a little more difficult to make it traceable. Hell, it seems a majority of the time, these sorts of events either they just plain don’t care, or they want people to know. Admittedly, in this case, it seems that the person or person involved didn’t want their identity known, but it also doesn’t appear that they were that interested in a high quality bomb, based on how it was apparently constructed. Regardless, the sort of people who do this are not normal people and trying to apply that sort of logic to their motivations just isn’t reasonable. > [@RTFirefly](#): > > Similarly, instructions for making an atomic bomb are available on the Internet, and were available for many years before the Internet. So there’s no point in trying to keep Iran from building a nuke. There’s just a bit of difference between having information available and having a specifically identified threat. It’s also easy to make drugs using cough medicine and other easily available chemicals. Trying to find a meth lab by tracking everyone that buys cough medicine is just about as silly. Yes, it makes sense to try to stop Iran from building a bomb but, in this analogy, that’s like trying to stop a known drug dealer from going into his local pharmacy and buying 50 bottles of cough medicine. It’s just not the same to try to stop someone who from making two small crudely constructed bombs as trying to stop a state from obtaining the materials to build a nuclear weapon. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/31 "2013-04-18T17:40:50Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > [impassioned liberal voice] > At least he’s trying something! > [/impassioned liberal voice] Why do you mock? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/32 "2013-04-18T18:16:41Z")
Because conservatives are hate filled bigots. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/33 "2013-04-18T18:21:34Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Why do you mock? :dubious: Beats me. I mean, shouting out a “huzzah!” to an objection that, to any mathematically literate person, is obvious nonsense serves no purpose but to make the huzzaher look foolish. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/34 "2013-04-18T18:31:51Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The idea is to make it more difficult to build bombs, and to have a better chance of identifying the bomb maker should they do so anyway. But is it really worth the effort? I mean, we’re having knee-jerk reactions to the Boston events, without really stopping to consider what these reactions might actually entail. Potassium nitrate and sulfur are both extremely common chemicals- so much so that they’re produced in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tons. It’s primarily used as a fertilizer, but is also used in toothpastes, meat curing, cigarettes, power generation, metal treatment, stump removing, food ingredient and other uses. Any sort of taggant would have to be acceptable enough to be used in any and all of those applications, and would have to be specific enough to be usefully trackable. All this effort and expense because of two bombs that used blackpowder. It just doesn’t seem like a useful application of the force of law in this case- it’s appealing to fearmongering and not actually solving a real problem. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/35 "2013-04-18T18:33:40Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > It’s actually difficult to make \* good \* gunpowder. The Mythbusters tried it, and they came up with stuff that was distinctly inferior to the commercial stuff. And really, I’m not seeing a downside to making it harder and more complicated for people to make untraceable bombs. True. Very true. I’ve tried it myself. It’s very difficult and time-consuming to make powder that’s quick enough for, say, a black powder rifle. But for a bomb? That’s the easiest thing to use gunpowder for. A container packed with poor quality gunpowder will still blow up just fine. What I’m seeing here is the usual collection of people who are terrified of anything related to guns, and who don’t know the first thing about guns or gunpowder, signing on to a proposal that would do very little under the theory that it’s better to try something because at least you’re trying. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/36 "2013-04-18T18:35:52Z")
> [@bump](#): > > But is it really worth the effort? I mean, we’re having knee-jerk reactions to the Boston events, without really stopping to consider what these reactions might actually entail. > > Potassium nitrate and sulfur are both extremely common chemicals- so much so that they’re produced in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tons. It’s primarily used as a fertilizer, but is also used in toothpastes, meat curing, cigarettes, power generation, metal treatment, stump removing, food ingredient and other uses. > > Any sort of taggant would have to be acceptable enough to be used in any and all of those applications, and would have to be specific enough to be usefully trackable. > > All this effort and expense because of two bombs that used blackpowder. > > It just doesn’t seem like a useful application of the force of law in this case- it’s appealing to fearmongering and not actually solving a real problem. I doubt there are any significant costs or effects from the taggants based on earlier discussions of this. If there are, then a cost/benefit analysis is due. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/37 "2013-04-18T18:38:26Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > BTW, what the heck is the NRA’s supposed interest in this? Do they believe the right to bear arms goes beyond sidearms and extends to the right to make bombs? There is an entire community – not, perhaps, inhabited by too many liberals – who are interested in muzzle-loaded firearms. These firearms use black powder. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/38 "2013-04-18T18:41:29Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Similarly, instructions for making an atomic bomb are available on the Internet, and were available for many years before the Internet. So there’s no point in trying to keep Iran from building a nuke. But NOT similarly, an atomic bomb cannot be made from sulfur, potassium nitrate, charcoal, and a mortal and pestle. Nor can it be made from ingredients which are anywhere near as common as those are. So one of these things, as Sesame Street taught the day you were absent, is not like the other. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/39 "2013-04-18T18:41:50Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > There is an entire community – not, perhaps, inhabited by too many liberals – who are interested in muzzle-loaded firearms. These firearms use black powder. And they’re afraid that the government will use this tactic to take their muzzle-loaders away from them? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031/40 "2013-04-18T18:58:28Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > What I’m seeing here is the usual collection of people who are terrified of anything related to guns Yes, such as taking an interest in preventing unnecessary deaths. > [@](#): > > and who don’t know the first thing about guns or gunpowder Unlike yourself, of course. > [@](#): > > signing on to a proposal that would do very little under the theory that it’s better to try something because at least you’re trying. As opposed to \*your \*preferred approach to limiting the deaths of the already-born, which would be what exactly, other than mockery? :dubious: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-reason-to-pit-the-nra-no-taggants-in-gunpowder/656031.md?page=3)