From: Robin Mallon <[u--ic--m] at [flash.net]>
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater,talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: TAGGANTS--What's the big deal?
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 10:30:39 -0700

The big deal is taggants don't work, they can be dangerous, they will prevent powder
stockpiling, and they are nothing more than justification for registration.

 We studied taggants back in 1981 in conjunction with Hercules. The line then, and now, was
taggants serve as a "fingerprint" for tracing. This is simply a LIE. They will NOT do this.
For those that do not know what taggants are: They are a small piece of plastic with a 
series of color bands. These bands serve as a coding very much like resistors for the
electronic types out there. The base plastic is doped to make is sensative to ultraviolet
so they will glow under a black light.

The Fed line was then, and is now:
==================================
After a bomb detonated, the ATF would run around with a black light and an Easter basket
collecting these taggants and read the code. With this in hand, they could go to the
manufacturer and, with a little paperwork and some leg work, arrive at your doorstep with 
a warrant.

Reallity Check 1:
=================
 Power samples were separated into controls and test samples doped with taggants.

 1) It was found taggants react with nitrocellulous creating a chemical change in the powder
grains surrounding them. Tests with the degraded powder produced pressure variations as high
as 35% over the controls depending on where in the sample the powder was drawn from. This
can be deadly in a high performance load.
 2) Taggant density is fixed where powder density is variable. Handling, transportation, and
the loading process itself cause taggants to settle or rise in the powder. When a sample was
remixed and placed in a progressive loader, the taggants reseparated in the hopper so you
would be loading pure powder at one end and a high concentration of taggants at the other.
 Observation 1: Between separation of taggants and/or chemical changes, dangerous pressures
can result due to over or under charging. The loading manuals show both "maximum" and
"minimum" loads for a reason.
 Observation 2: The degrading effect of taggants on powder PREVENTS long term storage of
powder(stockpiling?). What you stored may have little bearing on what finally comes out of
the canister. Anyone remember the life-limited primer scare? That wasn't real but this is.
This appears to be one HALF of the real reasons for taggants.

Reality Check 2:
================
 Are taggants a "fingerprint" and can taggants trace a powder? The answer is NO!

 1) Taggants contain only a small amount of information. They CAN identify a manufacturer
and they CAN identify a particular powder type. Beyond this they CANNOT identify a
particular batch of powder.
 2) If the AFT goes to the manufactuer with a sample of taggants, they could identify the
powder type. Which 20,000 pound batch? Tracing only one batch, the manufacturer would now
have to track which distributors received those particular 20,000 one lb. canisters. 
 3) The ATF goes to those 30 to 50 distributors to find out what dealers they went to. The
distributors now have to track which dealers got what powder from what batch.
 4) At the several hundred dealers, the ATF needs a list of 20,000 customers (read
suspects). But they don't track this so now we finally get to the other half - REGISTRATION.
Even with this, the ATF has to beat on 20,000 doors. Wheres the powder - I loaded it -
wheres the rounds - I shot them - prove it - huh - lets go downtown.
 Observation 1: This provides a vehicle for more federal restrictions on powder
manufacturers, distributors, and dealers.
 Observation 2: All of this justifies registration of the end buyer - the real reason for
taggants. 
 Observation 3: With all these new federal restrictions AND registration, they still have
20,000 suspects from one batch. But which batch did it realy come from? 

 Do taggants work - NO. They cannot trace anything to anyone. They are a registration scheme
and a way to prevent any stockpiling.
 Why do other countries use this? - THEY DON'T. An HCI lie perpetuated by the anti's. NO
country is using taggants. Several have looked at this and rejected it. Switzerland tried
this for a short time and found it traced nothing and was hazardous as well. It was dropped.
Paranoid England came to the same conclusion.

 An enterprising individual pointed out all your local mad bomber had to do was pour the
powder into a vibratory case cleaner and separate the taggants. For real fun, they could
mix powder with taggants from 3 or 4 manufacturers. The suspect list would read something 
like: Definately male or female, possibly caucasian or from one of the minority groups, may
be an environmentalist or militia or neither, possibly likes vanilla icecream or maybe not.

 This is a REGISTRATION scheme and STOCKPILING prevention scheme - period. The real danger
now is the use of the term "fingerprint" being tossed around the media. HCI, et. al., was able
to promote the term "Assault Weapon" in order to "scare" everyone into the assault weapon
ban. The term "fingerprint" is now being promoted as our "salvation" from mad bombers. This
is a good tactic.

Robin Mallon
UNICOM Research