The Glasgow Airport attack and the defeated attack earlier at Haymarket in London were ( in the view of many) brought about because of the inability of the terrorist in the Uk to obtain commercial explosives and in particular the key element , a detonator. hence they resort to other means such as LPG and fuel. Our domestic explosive security regime has stood the test of time for over 20 years now both in respect of how we make sure the right people obtain certain articles and then in respect of how they are stored.
The much different precursor issue is born of a long standing EU directive on the security of explosives and precursors. It is not driven by one country alone and i believe that if each member state were to develop its own precursor controls there would be 27 vastly differing results. EU was very much alive to this and took the unusual step of making its own EU wide regulation. It will have to implemented by a Statutory Instrument in the UK as EU Regs have no direct legal status on us. Lobby MP's for a review by all means, but I fear that implementation if far closer than many would think.
Wont comment on handguns on a pyro forum.
mmmm. I am not sure what to say to this. Yes I agree with the current controls on explosives. Yes they have to controlled in a safe and auditable manner. No doubt we don't want them getting into the wrong hands whether they be terrorists or just someone who will accidentally blow their arm off.
I don't think that anyone here disagrees with these controls and can see the sensible reasoning behind them.
I don't know all of the facts regarding the Glasgow incident. I am sure if they have got hold of a couple of sticks of dynamite easily then it would have been a far different event. However these people would not appear to be the brightest tools in the box.
Anyone with an A level in chemistry could produce the precursors that are proposed to be banned by these regulations. So really would this regulation have any effect at all in reducing the terrorism risk? I doubt it.
In fact it could conceivably make it much harder to detect those planning an attack as they would have no need at all to try and procure chemicals from the main stream. I would guess it would be pretty difficult trying to monitor the purchase of titanium, platinum and a few other precious metals that can be used for electrolysis to make chlorate's, perchlorate's and hydrogen peroxide from foodstuffs, tap water and maybe the odd car battery.
Nitrates may be a little more difficult, but still very easily doable. But it begs the question why bother with nitrates unless it is to make nitric acid (still doable easily).
Acetone well banning this in pure form is clearly aimed at TATP, OK well would any terrorist actually want to use this? If they did acetone could easily be extracted from any number of consumer products with great ease. I would guess it could be done without even having to bother looking up the phase equilibra in the many hundreds of published data sources.
So will these regulations have any effect on the determined terrorist. I very much doubt it.
When I did my ADR driving course, the implication was that the main terrorist threat was going to be from goods of high consequence in the future. Not necessary from the hijack for clandestine use, but from the hijack for immediate use. Just think of a vehicle which is carrying 5 tonnes of liquid chlorine gas being captured and the valve on the tank knocked off with a sledge hammer in a built up area. How about one of those randomly scheduled cyanide transport trains that go though cities in the dead of night being holed. I would guess the consequences could be far more significant than any other form of attack.
So again why bother to ban something that would have little to no impact on the plans of a well informed fundamentalist or do we believe that they are all so stupid they could not work out a simple way round it. I would propose that if the risk is real that the money being spent on this would be far better spent on intelligence, infiltration and ultimately targeting the people who are actively involved in planning attacks. Rather than alerting them up front that they will have to change their mode of operation making it more difficult to find them.
cant see how banning perc cells is going to stop johnny terrorist? i can picture the situation now .... wright lads!(johnny terrorist) pack it all up where not aloud to do it anymore thieve banned it, we might get in trouble....
or do they give a sh+te? hmm let me think.
Yep exactly. Also, perc why would they be interested in this anyway. Much nastier things would be in their top 10 desirable items.
Edited by digger, 13 October 2010 - 10:54 PM.
