Do we know whether criminals do/don’t wear gloves when loading?
What are the stats on casing fingerprints tying someone to a crime? Are they really that useful or are they a secondary piece of evidence (I genuinely don’t know)?
Also, “criminals” is a large bucket. Are we talking about the average gang member out shooting his rivals probably with a stolen gun that may have been loaded by someone else, then ditched afterwards, or sold? (IIRC, gang shootings comprise something like 85%+ of all shootings).
Plus fingerprints don’t lead you to a suspect, unless they’ve committed a crime before.
To build on this - casings and bullets are more likely to be useful because the marks left on them by the lands/grooves (for the bullet) or the chamber, extractor, and bolt face (for the casing) are likely to be consistent with the criminal’s firearm. However, this assumes that the criminal is caught first, and the gun they used was both recovered, and can be linked to them. (either circumstantially or by forensic evidence).
I suspect that, if you replaced the barrel and extractor immediately after committing a murder, it would be very difficult to link the firearm to the murder, particularly if it was an exceptionally common firearm. Although you’d want to buy the parts with cash, so that the purchase couldn’t be linked to you…
Do we know whether criminals do/don’t wear gloves when loading?
What are the stats on casing fingerprints tying someone to a crime? Are they really that useful or are they a secondary piece of evidence (I genuinely don’t know)?
Also, “criminals” is a large bucket. Are we talking about the average gang member out shooting his rivals probably with a stolen gun that may have been loaded by someone else, then ditched afterwards, or sold? (IIRC, gang shootings comprise something like 85%+ of all shootings).
Plus fingerprints don’t lead you to a suspect, unless they’ve committed a crime before.
To build on this - casings and bullets are more likely to be useful because the marks left on them by the lands/grooves (for the bullet) or the chamber, extractor, and bolt face (for the casing) are likely to be consistent with the criminal’s firearm. However, this assumes that the criminal is caught first, and the gun they used was both recovered, and can be linked to them. (either circumstantially or by forensic evidence).
I suspect that, if you replaced the barrel and extractor immediately after committing a murder, it would be very difficult to link the firearm to the murder, particularly if it was an exceptionally common firearm. Although you’d want to buy the parts with cash, so that the purchase couldn’t be linked to you…
Firing pin too, to be safe