What do ya'll think, is this for real or scam,trap?

[Hungry Seagull]

There is a casing in a sealed envelope for my gun by the factory that casing is in a secure place for future use.

The rest of it is iffy.

 

[Average Joe]

First of all they would not call you on the phone, they would show up at your front door. So as far a I am concerned its just some nut on the phone playing games .

 

[leadcounsel]

BS - they don't have the gun to match it.

If I read correctly they don't have the gun so how could they match it up (the recovered evidence with a shot/casing from the known weapon to compare it)?

 

[Duke of Doubt]

God, what a waste of money.

So you swap out the unserialed barrel and unserialed bolt assembly after taking delivery, and after you whack Curious George, you turn in your gun to rule yourself out as a potential suspect. After all, "It Doesn't Match."

*****.

 

[TexasRifleman]

There is a casing in a sealed envelope for my gun by the factory that casing is in a secure place for future use.

Just curious. Why in the world are you keeping it?

 

[Hungry Seagull]

Texas Rifleman, I dont know. It came with the gun, manual etc. It sits in the gun case. It was a retail purchase. Figures it's some kind of ballistic test on the gun itself so... if there is ever a problem like a shootout or whatever, the forensics can determine which gun is which.

Have been thinking for days about making new thread about this particular item, but did not want to pronouce my ignorance for all the world to see with such a dumb question. Maybe I learn something here yah?

 

[mgkdrgn]

the phone number to hear this story is:

1 - 800 - bul - ****

 

[madmike]

I wonder, is a "bullet casing" more like a sausage casing, or more like a cartridge case?

Sorry, I just hate bad nomenclature. Load the "bullet casing" with "gunpowder" and "slugs" then put it in the "clip" for your "assault weapon."

I actually wrote a lengthy article on why "ballistic fingerprinting" is utter BS, but that forum is now down. I should archive it. So is "Serial numbering" bullets.

The former is just impossible--unless no one ever changes barrels or firing pins, never shoots them enough to change characteristics, never does a heavy cleaning, never deliberately polishes/gouges any of the above. And given modern manufacturing, there's so little difference between components anyway that a bullet fired in just about any weapon, certainly from a given mfr, is going to be identical to most others.
(BTW, I believe the empty cases are to prove that the fired bullets were submitted to the state. The cases are worthless.)

The latter is legally impossible--prove I bought a certain bullet. Think carefully about how that would be done. If the number is on the side or nose, it will go away when shot. On the base, it's not visible--HOW DO YOU PROVE I EVER RECEIVED THAT BULLET? That it went into that exact case, that box of ammo, and that no one from producer to retailer might have mixed them around?

You can't.

If such a law passed it would be invalidated in the first trial. This is why drug testing requires chain of custody from specimen to lab and back. You're going to do that with bullets?

Hah.

Back on topic: There is NO WAY ATF can know what gun was fired. Nor would that be their jurisdiction. Nor would they call on the phone and give someone a chance to dispose of evidence.

The story is BS. Either someone is conning the teller, or he's lying.

 

[Desert Panther]

question

duke of doubt wrote "Fingerprinting is the biggest con in criminal justice for the past century. It's crap."

just curious here, and not trying to hijack the thread, but can you explain this a little further?

 

[akodo]

There is a casing in a sealed envelope for my gun by the factory that casing is in a secure place for future use

shop owner pulled out a little envelope from the XD's case and proceeded to tell me not to throw this envelope away because if I did I wouldn't be able to sell the gun in MD. I asked him what it was and he explained that it was a spent casing that the factory shoots then submits a report or something to MD.

Here's how it works.

In SOME states and SOME cities, when a new gun is purchased, a fired case must be sent into some LEO agency in theory to build a database so they can collect cases at a crime scene, run the cases, and see whose gun the came from.

Here's the deal, no way can a gun maker know what state a firearm will be sent to once it hits the distributor. Gun makers aren't going to make special runs of guns just for certain states. Most gun makers, to make sure their guns can be sold in those states include these cases in ALL firearms.

IF you are a state/city that requires this, the FFL will be the one taking out the cases and sending them in.

Obviously, anyone buying the gun to commit a crime will use a straw buyer AND will fail to send the cases in. Hence they'd never leave it up to the individual purchaser, any more than the gun shop would hand you the phone and tell you to call NICS yourself and then believe you when you said 'I got the all clear'

 

[Deanimator]

Back in the late '80s, I got a letter through the Army Locator Service. It was from a gun store in Elizabethtown, KY where I'd bought and traded a lot of guns while I was stationed at Fort Knox. It turns out that one of the guns that I'd traded to them had been stolen in California around ten years before I traded it to them. The BATF had contacted the store seeking to determine where they'd gotten it. They in turn contacted me to find out where I'd gotten it. I called the gun store and told them that I'd bought it on a 4473 from a well known gun store in Cosmosdale, KY a little ways north on Hwy 31w. That's the last I've heard of the matter, and that was some time around 1988 or so.

PS - The agency's name is BATFE, NOT "ATF". That's a juvenile affectation of theirs I have UTTERLY refused to cater to.

 

[crebralfix]

If the ATF really did call him, then it's not a social call! Don't talk to the police except through the filter of a lawyer. Period. Don't allow them to do anything without a warrant.

 

[TexasRifleman]

just curious here, and not trying to hijack the thread, but can you explain this a little further?

Duke probably has his own stories, since he's an attorney, but fingerprinting has been coming under fire in more recent years.

For a long time courts just accepted that it was a "perfect" science and that was that.

As technology has improved there have been challenges to this belief, many successful.

Here's a 2001 article from the NY Times, if you search around you can find other writings on the subject.

http://www.truthinjustice.org/fingerprints.htm

More recent

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/mar/23/crime.penal

 

[Duke of Doubt]

TX11B: "fingerprinting has been coming under fire in more recent years."

Oh, yes. In fifteen years practice, seven of them focussed on felony criminal and tax cases, I've never yet seen a prosecutor try to introduce fingerprint "evidence" at trial. However, I DID once encounter same in a pre-trial hearing a few years back, and the assistant District Attorney withdrew his own evidence in order to keep my sarcasm in its holster.

You can imagine.

"So ... Miss Fingerstain ... your testimony is to say that, and to summarize, those 'prints' you compared to those 'prints taken from my client, are NOT exactly those prints of the accused?" /"Err, yes, but they were compared."/"Meaning you compared them. And you are testifying, today, specifically that those same compared prints are NOT the exact same as those of whichever animal did those things to Miss Jones?"/"Well, yes."/"Not the same, but somewhat similar, in some ways?"/"Yes."/"Thank you. Nothing further."

PWN

 

[BHP FAN]

Well,that's how they do it on CSI. Seriously though, like the polygraph a lot of this 'science' depends on what the bad guy believes you can do.

 

[Duke of Doubt]

BHP FAN: "Seriously though, like the polygraph a lot of this 'science' depends on what the bad guy believes you can do."

Oh, I know. And I'm not some bleeding heart. It's hilarious what they'll believe. You could tell them the freaking Tooth Fairy gave them up through DNA CSI evidence, and they'd finger their own grandmother for the Cooper job.

 

[madmike]

Deanimator: I think what they were trying to do is show a chain from mfr to last owner. That's helpful in proving theft, and IIRC, it's required before a defaced weapon can have a number restored--they have to be able to either lift the number (with acid, magnaflux, etc...it is VERY HARD to obliterate a stamped serial number except by welding or drilling), or prove origin on it.

 

[JWF III]

All that is needed is a "call back" number,then call it...

...or just do a reverse look up on the web. If it's a gov't agency, it'll be listed.

Oh, and this has nothing to do with microstamping, it's supposed to work with standard, Mark I ammo and guns, by matching the marks left on the brass upon firing by imperfections in the chamber, extractor marks, etc.

I guess no politician has ever thought that a revolver could be used in a crime. Anywhere from 5-10 different chambers, with different tooling marks, no extractor marks, and no cases left on the scene.

Wyman