Taggants, a potential means of limiting such terrorist attacks as the Centennial Park bombing in Atlanta, Ga., has come under fire from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun advocacy groups.

Taggants are microscopic, plastic, identification markers that can be placed in explosives. The taggants are not destroyed when the explosive goes off: the individual chemical patterns on them can be removed from the blast site and examined. It can be traced back to the store where it was bought, and the gun store records can identify the purchaser of the explosives.

The NRA claims that taggants are dangerous to both the explosive and the owner. Private studies conducted in the late '70s and the early '80s show that taggants may elevate chemical reactions within explosives, making them volatile and unsafe.

European researchers claim that repeated testings have shown no safety risk in the use of taggants. American government researchers are expected to duplicate the European researchers' results.

President Clinton granted $25 million for a taggant study as a part of his controversial 1996 crime bill. Before the study was approved, it was illegal for the government to research taggants. This will be the first U.S. government study on the subject.

Congressman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) included the proposal to study taggants in the crime bill. "If the tags aren't safe," he said, "a study will show that. But when the right-wing, rabid forces don't want something in, this Congress just bows and scrapes and goes along."

Gun owners have another reason for not wanting the taggants: the potential attak on gun owners themselves. For taggants to be effective, each batch of explosives, including black powder, must be individually marked. Black powder is used in ammunition, which some gun owners make by hand. If too many people have explosives with the same chemical pattern, the taggant becomes essentially useless. In cases where an investigation is underway, all people with tagganted explosives would be questioned, regardless of their involvement.

Over half of the bombs investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) involve black powder. The Cenntennnial Park bomb used an estimated 40 pounds of powder. "If taggants applied to black powder," Schumer said in the same interview, "it would have been a real deterrent to those wh set off this pipe bomb in Atlanta."

"Taggants are merely a cheap attempt to get gun control through the back door," said Paul Rogers, a gun activist. He believes taggants are part of a plot to keep ammunition out of the hands of legal gun owners. "The anti-gunners have realized that it is difficult to work up front trying to ban guns, but if they eliminate ammunition, then firearms would become obsolete."

Taggants are one of the few issues that President Clinton and former Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole agreed on in the 1996 presidential campaign. "We have a measure," Dole said, "that will give us a strong upper hand in the battle to prevent and punish domestic and international terrorism."

Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del.) believes that the opponents to taggants are extremists. The Republican legislators fighting the bill he said are "pandering to the concern of some Americans that the bad guys are the cops, the bad guys are the government, the bad guys are the FBI or ATF or the Justice Department.

Copyright 1997 Sean Ryan. All Rights Reserved.