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Firing a gun leaves residue on your hands etc. They can tell whether you fired it
by sfn42 3y ago
Firing a gun leaves residue on your hands etc. They can tell whether you fired it
- sethammons 3y agoI'm not a trained killer, but I have watched some movies. To account for residue, just place the firearm in the corpse's hand, point in a random upward trajectory and pull back on the dead person's trigger finger. Optionally, replace the spent bullet in the gun's magazine. I feel you would have come up with this same solution had you needed to.
- temp-of-course 3y ago[flagged]
- ben_w 3y agoMy guess is that Hollywood is as inaccurate with regard to homicide and secret assassinations as it is with hacking and programming.
- madaxe_again 3y agoIt is far, far easier to just carry a small phial or swab of cordite residues and copper fines that you then apply to the back of the hand between thumb and forefinger, where swabs are taken. No screwing around.
- vintermann 3y agoSure, they can tell, if they look. But people with well-developed career instincts might not want to look. I think you overestimate how much the regular policeman, coroner etc. cares about truth for its own sake. Do you really want to pick a fight with Boeing? It's very easy to play Nelson and turn the blind eye. Making up a coherent narrative in a lie is hard. But the lie "I didn't notice anything suspect" is very safe.
- withinboredom 3y agoThey can tell whether you fired A gun, not necessarily that you fired that specific gun into your specific body. It's circumstantial evidence at best. Better evidence would be signs of a struggle or calculating bullet velocity to see if it came from the gun in that position. However, there are ways of doing this without actually causing a struggle. Wait for them to go to sleep; you could even give them some melatonin or something to make them drowsy. If it's in a car, put some nitrogen canisters on the A/C intake to make them pass out. If it is nefarious, there will be evidence somewhere. Whether you care to look for that evidence, know where to look for it or have the technology to find it ... that's another matter altogether.
- sfn42 3y agoI think you got my point backwards. If you are found with a gunshot wound in your head, holding a gun, but you don't have gunpowder residue on your hand, it's pretty safe to say you didn't shoot yourself. Of course there are ways to get around that but the killer has to actually perform that workaround.
- withinboredom 3y agoI got your point, but I was making that point that even then, it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe they went to a shooting range that afternoon. Maybe the killer does something to ensure the residue is there. Maybe the killer manipulates them in their sleep. Who knows.
- sfn42 3y agoNo you still don't seem to get the point. I'm saying the *absence* of gunpowder residue means something, I'm not saying the presence of it means anything.
- thaumasiotes 3y agowithinboredom seems to be making the similar but tangential point that, in the same way that absence of gunpowder is evidence [of something] while presence of gunpowder isn't evidence of anything, it's possible to demonstrate that a death was not by suicide, but it isn't possible to demonstrate that a death was by suicide. Same idea, but reversing "which part of the sentence is the variable".
- berniedurfee 3y agoI’m guessing that’s a solved problem by now.
- hammock 3y agoPerhaps that is why so many suicides, such as that of Gary Webb, involve two bullets from the same gun
- tim333 3y agoMost shots don't kill instantly, unless you go straight through the brain.