You can objectively see the wear on this tool This is the second post in a series about the Michigan vs Mitchell Daubert decision of 2026. In the first post I highlighted that the people brought in to testify for the complete exclusion of firearms examination evidence were college professors of law and psychology. These professors have never designed an original study to try to support their hypothesis that there is no value to firearms examination evidence. They have done li

From February 24-27, 2026, a hearing was held in the city of Detroit to completely exclude a firearm examiner's testimony. Arguments against the field of firearm examination were given by David Faigman and Nicolas Scurich. Faigman is a law professor with a Master's in Psychology. Scurich is a Psychology professor. These practitioners and teachers of psychology and law fly around the country and provide testimony against the use of forensic science in courts. Their goal is the

I used this cheesy AI image to visually demonstrate the CSI effect Inspired by a recent post I read about, but also a rising trend I have been seeing since starting a forensic career, is a new set of forensic services that are being labeled as forensic intelligence. I personally think this is a good name that describes the service well. We've all seen the war movies where the intelligence as saved the day, but also where it was horribly wrong and only the wits of the salty se

Rolling Stone came out with an article titled "This Man Wants to Help You Print Your Own Gun" by Jack Crosbie. An attention grabbing title on a topic coming more and more into the mainstream. Overall, the article provides a pretty matter of fact representation of the topic of 3d printed firearms, one type of so-called ghost gun. But what exactly is a ghost gun and why does it deserve a haunting name. Really the title of ghost is not meant in the scary movie and mythological

The annual AFTE training seminar 2026 Baltimore as viewed from the back row. Going to training is hard, especially now that federal grants that have been relied on for funding are starting to become unreliable. As forensics seems to be entering a post CSI-effect era, and departments continue to pull funding for other uses, in-house training is increasingly the sole source of training a new examiner may get. I have had the privilege to go to several seminars, being lucky enoug

I recently testified to a very specific type of ammunition called the R.I.P. (radically invasive projectile) from G2 Research. One interesting part about firearms examination is learning about all the various designs of ammunition, and it's another aspect that is constantly changing as ammunition designers try to get specific types of performance. One design choice for ammunition is loading a hollow point bullet into the cartridge (see the previous post about the terminology

This version of Glock switch is obvious to see. First and most important, they do work, at least for a time. They will not last as long as a metal version, but they are a small item to print, so the durability of them is not an issue. Once the blade of the Glock switch wears down, the firearm is still functional as well, just in it's standard semi-automatic function. There are two main versions of the Glock switch. The one I see most often is the one pictured to the left. Thi

Pulled bullet and an intact cartridge If you want to utter terms that make a firearms examiner shiver (a phenomenon similar to saying splatter to a bloodstain pattern analyst) on the stand, continuously use the term bullet for cartridges and clip for ammunition magazine. We'll focus on cartridges for today. Bullet is used colloquially to name an unfired piece of ammunition for a firearm. Cartridge is the term a firearms examiner would prefer you use. Using bullet sets up the

Top left moving clockwise: hemispherical (circle) smooth finish, hemispherical with turning marks, elliptical with rectangular firing pin aperture. This would be three easy eliminations. Class characteristics are the type of data that a firearm and toolmark examiner will use when they first start their comparison. These are generally pretty easy to see, and can be explained a viewed by a non-expert with little guidance. Sometime, as the example in the picture, it is as simple

FMJ vs TMJ (plated) fired bullets There are always hypotheticals and wiggle room in forensics, but especially when dealing with general rifling characteristics. Now, this does not mean general rifling characteristics examinations are useless. Like a lot of things in forensics, it is very dependent on the evidence. As mentioned in my first blog post about the inconclusive result for the bullet that killed Charlie Kirk, the condition of the evidence is always the first hurdle t

You look at your phone notifications and see this headline from People Magazine authored by Liam Quinn. The subheading reads, "Robinson's lawyers claim an ATF analysis failed to link the bullet to the rifle..." Reading this with no guidance, this seems like a case-closing piece of information. How can you continue to trial when the lethal bullet does not link back to the firearm of the suspect? Continuing to read, you come across the "need to know" section. "...lawyers are ar