ABSTRACT

In the United States, the annual number of gun-related crimes is in the hundreds of thousands, and about two thirds of all murders are committed with a gun. Almost 400 million guns of all types are owned by civilians—about 1.2 guns for every man, woman, and child. Experts in firearms examination visually compare striations on bullets or cartridge cases found in a crime scene with those on test shots obtained from the suspect's gun, or on samples recovered from a different crime scene. This chapter describes statistical methods for comparing bullet striations and cartridge cases.