really off topic
 

My wife likes to subscribe to Alfred Hitchcock/Ellery Queen magazines. I've read some funky stuff about guns in them, but this latest is something I've never before seen.

In one of the stories I read recently a couple of detectives were putting on a public program for writers and they pooh-poohed the idea of using a pencil down the barrel to pick up a pistol, preserving the fingerprints. Seems they thought it would mar the barrel and make testing bullets for matches impossible.

Guess all the muzzleloader shooters better discard their wooden ramrods before they damage the bores.

It is like the actors on CSI who wear rubber gloves to pick up evidence, including firearms, but still handle those parts of the gun where fingerprints might exist, as if gloves wouldn't smear them :D

Some things just do defy logic, don't they, John?

You would never stick anything down the barrel ... as any good defense attorney would shred you to pieces on cross for altering the ballistic/physical evidence. You must recall, even a less than close range shot might result in the targets blood/hair/skin being blown back at the firearm and ending up .... in the barrel ... among other places. And never a pencil. Pencils have nasty things like paint coatings and graphite that can transfer to the evidence. Cops rarely use pencils anyway.

Pen through the trigger guard. CAREFULLY ... as to not touch the trigger!

No trigger guard you say? Adapt and overcome. =)

worth a click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMt9XuUG2k8 :D

Right or wrong, many members of the public see these CSI programs and report for jury duty expecting real police to have these resources, which they usually don't. It has now become such a problem that prosecutors must now address the "CSI effect" in their arguments to juries - "Honest folks, it's just make-believe"!

H