Joe Biden: “I remember at the time being dumbfounded, quite frankly, that the chemical industry, a large chemical industry in…”

“I remember at the time being dumbfounded, quite frankly, that the chemical industry, a large chemical industry in Delaware, and others would not push hard for these actions to be taken. I mean, I just assumed, naively, that this would be something everybody would be for. There is one argument that can be made in opposition to what we are trying to do and I think we should state it. That OTA study, Office of Technology Assessment study, said that there was only one possible exception to the circumstance under which adding a taggant might diminish the safety, and that was with regard to smokeless powder. The Senator pointed out that back as early as 1973, the NRA pointed out that they were concerned about people who were muzzle loading antique guns and using smokeless powder to put them in a position to be able to use the guns. Probably we could have settled that matter then but it turned out that, whether the NRA was concerned about that or not--and I will not make a judgment about that--it ended up being the initial device used, the wedge used to block anything from happening.”