h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

less about the person and more about the weapon....

Ooooooooooooo

Had the gun been fired recently?


He said he could smell if it had!



GT

...............or he could tell just by looking at it that it had recently been fired. Colour of muzzle perhapse?



GT

Was he apparently able to tell murder from suicide? Down to how the gun was fired and from what angle and at what part of the body?

OY!!!!


Elf!!!


Wakey-Wakey!!!!


GT

As Huxley said, 'After Many A Summer Dies the Swan'.



~jwf~

In the case I'm think of, no. The firing mechanism was too rusty to work.

Not his olfactory sense....

>could tell just by looking at it that it had recently been fired<

He wasn't looking at the colour...

>Was he apparently able to tell murder from suicide? Down to how the gun was fired and from what angle and at what part of the body?<

Nope.

>Wakey-Wakey!<

wake me in the spring I wuz hibernating.....

Is it a property that he claimed to be unique to each gun (i.e this bullet definately came from this gun) which we now know not to be?


Geggs

Is it a property that he claimed to be unique to each gun (i.e this bullet definately came from this gun) which we now know not to be?

Yes and then no. In that order. DGI +1

I can't remember where we are exactly with this one.

Could we have a summing up of what we know and what we don't, please Clive?


Geggs

Can I do it tomorrow? I am tired and going to bed soon.

I see we are all blethering on about the gun and the bullet.

What about the cartridge case itself.

I have seen recently that the firing pin itself makes a unique mark on the bottom of the case to fire the bullet.

Did he say that the bullet came out of the case, even though he could not prove it?


GT

Have a DGI +1 for "unique mark"

Are we talking automatic weapons here??

If so, there is a still controversial theory that you can link marks on the cartridge case to the shell ejection mechanism....


GT

Not in this case no.

You're hovering in the right area, but no-one yet has alighted upon what Hamilton was (in part) responsible for or quite got his role in the sequence of events.

Hokay. Complete flyer.

At one time it was thought that an image of the murderer would remain imprinted on the eye lens (in the right circs, of course)
- but 1915 seems a bit late for that...

Did this non doctor claim to be able to see/interpret such things?