Customer Reviews

Gunshot Wounds: Practical Aspects of Firearms, Ballistics and Forensic Techniques (Practical aspects of clinical & forensic investigations series)

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This text should be in the library of any reader who has an interest in the topic of guns and the injuries they produce. While written with the practising forensic pathologist in mind, the book is appropriate for investigators, attorneys and other healthcare providers. The discussions of firearms and their features are very good and should help those with limited knowledge about guns understand what they do, how they do it and the terminology used in the field.

As a criminal defense attorney, my clients freedom often rests on my ability to understand the technical aspects of a case. While I will seldom, if ever, know more than the "expert" opposing me, understanding the topic in a straight forward and simple manner makes my interaction with that expert a benefit to my client. This to the point of knowing when not to say anything. This book provides a one-stop resource for all aspects of firearms, gunshot wounds, and the related forensic techniques and methods. A must for anyone who needs to understand, in plain language, the issues that come into play in gunshot injury and firearm cases. The photographs, x-rays, and diagrams provide an excellent point of reference for the text.

With the increasing use of forensics in courtrooms these days, it's imperative that attorneys be able to understand their applications. I practice criminal defense in Chicago and handle a lot of gun cases. I am also a very small-time solo practitioner whose clients cannot afford expert witnesses. I must, therefore, be able to have a working knowledge of gun-related evidence.

This book provides more than an ample amount of information for all types of firearms: handguns, hunting rifles, shotguns, and assault weapons. It also discusses in great detail the different types of ammunition even to the level of different gun powders and primers. Do you know how to look at a gunshot wound and tell what caliber the bullet was? Or how far away the weapon was fired? Do you know how to visually analyze clothing that bullets have passed through to ascertain the same information? While this book may not be able to adequately train you to answer these questions within a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, it will get you close. You will know by looking at a wound if it was a contact or distant wound and if it was a small or large caliber weapon. More importantly you will know what tests to seek from the crime lab.

In other words, this book will show you what you don't know by explaining all there is to know. I currently have a murder case pending that I needed gunshot residue tests performed on the clothing the victims were wearing. I could have just put in my motion "gunshot residue test". After reading this book, however, I learned the names of the two commonly tests used by most crime labs, how they are done, what they can reveal, and how accurate the results can be. When the State's expert testifies at the trial, I will understand what he's talking about which only makes for a more effective cross.

If you have ever read a ballistics report and had no idea what "lands" and "grooves" were, this book will teach you what they are and how to apply them to a case. I have a military background and have been around a lot of firearms but never realized how much there is to know about them. This book will be an essential reference for years to come or until a new edition is published.

Very informative about the destructive power a bullet can have. As wrong as this may sound, if you own guns and have children, this is a good book to buy. It is difficult to explain to a child what a bullet can do to a human being. With this, you can show them.

The title of this book, should be "Ballistics". There is little information on the actual wounds, but more on the grains and callibers of the bullets. The book has black and white photos, which makes it very difficult to see stippling, powder burns and soot. You will learn detailed information about bullets and the brands (if you can rememeber all that), unfortunately, not much more.