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.