Concealed Carry Ammo - Factory Rounds or Your Reloads?

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Spats,

There were two trials, with a civil suit that concluded between the trials. Both criminal trials concluded with a hung jury. Some of the plaintiffs' statements during the civil suit were not congruent with their assertions during the first criminal trial. Those statements helped the defendant during the second criminal trial.

pax
 
well said (don't ask me how I know)

"WHEN YOU GET IN FRONT OF A JURY YOU ABSOLUTELY NEVER KNOW WHAT WILL OCCUR."

Truer words never spoken.
 
re:weshoot2

"WHEN YOU GET IN FRONT OF A JURY YOU ABSOLUTELY NEVER KNOW WHAT WILL OCCUR."

Truer words never spoken.
__________________
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Like giving milions of dollars to someone that burns themsleves with hot coffee.
 
fiddletown said:
One thing I need to point out. If you are claiming self defense, as a practical matter you will almost always wind up needing to testify.

Exercising your right not to testify is often tactically appropriate in a criminal case when you are not claiming self defense. Then of course, the prosecution must prove all the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. You're trying to keep the prosecutor from meeting his burden of proof. Often not testifying will thus help your defense.

To be sure, even when you are claiming self defense, the prosecutor must prove the elements of the crime. But when you claim self defense, you have effectively admitted the elements of the crime (i. e., you intentionally shot the guy). Your defense is that the legal standards justifying the use of lethal force in self defense were met.

So you will have to affirmatively put on evidence establishing prima facie that you were justified in shooting the guy. You will need to put on evidence about what happened sufficient to cause the trier of fact to be able to infer that a reasonable and prudent person in like circumstance would have concluded that lethal force was necessary to prevent otherwise unavoidable, immediate death or grave bodily injury to an innocent.

It's pretty tough for the defendant claiming self defense to be do that without taking the stand to tell his story.
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You're absolutely right, fiddletown. I overlooked the (very basic) point that self-defense is a justification defense. :o
 
Just curious:

How likely is it that the DA is going to even find out that you used reloads?

When I'm reloading for quality I've always used matching headstamps for consistent pressures. Unless the projectiles are truly weird or your reloads funky looking, I don't see where in the investigation anyone would notice that the bits of metal removed from the deceased aren't the factory match to the cases picked up at the scene. There's just no mechanism for that when there isn't a question about who fired the gun.

That seems like the main reason this is a non-issue.


And if you used lead wadcutters or some other less lethal ammo, how would that be used to show aggression or intent?
 
Not saying the legal concern against hand loads isn't real but I think it's crap! I guess we should all load 22shorts in a Single Six so as not to be accused of being to aggressive in defending ourselves.
 
Well, RX-79G, you're betting your hunch that nobody will find out against the State Crime Lab's scientists, who make their living examining shell casings.
It's not all about proving that the SD shooter was overly aggressive. Part of the problem has to do with proving that evidence lines up with the SD shooter's side of the story about distances and gunshot residue. For more information, I've collected a boatload of threads on this very issue here.
 
It's not a bet I'm likely to take, but what I've read lately about forensics in the US suggests that even complex crimes aren't getting the attention they deserve. Is there actually a test or match related to burn, residue and the rounds recovered that will actually come to the conclusion that something is fishy with the load?

It's like the debate about removing a mag safety: Sure, it may be a bad idea, but who's actually looking for that evidence?

It just seems paranoid to think that the lab guy is going to make sure that residue matches the round by any other means than firing another round because even factory ammo might have powder changes from lot to lot.

Meanwhile, guys are installing 3.5 connectors from target guns in their carry Glocks and no one calls that out. It all seems a little myopic.

If we really wanted to take this sort of thing seriously we'd only use common police issue unmodified guns, ammo and holsters.
 
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RX-79G said:
It's not a bet I'm likely to take, but what I've read lately about forensics in the US suggests that even complex crimes aren't getting the attention they deserve. Is there actually a test or match related to burn, residue and the rounds recovered that will actually come to the conclusion that something is fishy with the load?
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Why do the lab guys need a special test? I suspect that coffee cans of brass, the reloading press and 7 remaining pounds of powder at the shooter's house might clue them in. Don't think the police will be searching the shooter's house? They may not, but it's certainly not out of the question. Let's not overlook the shooter's statements, either. SD is a justification defense, which means that the SD shooter may well wind up talking to the police. Then the police just have to ask "what kind of ammo were you using?"

My point is that there is a pretty wide variety of ways that the police/prosecutor/State can come to the conclusion that handloads or reloads were used. They don't all involve high-tech scientific testing.

That said, I don't deal with any state crime labs other than the Arkansas State Crime lab, but I'll grant you that the folks who work there are overloaded, and that I suspect that many state crime labs are the same way.

RX-79G said:
It's like the debate about removing a mag safety: Sure, it may be a bad idea, but who's actually looking for that evidence?

It just seems paranoid to think that the lab guy is going to make sure that residue matches the round by any other means than firing another round because even factory ammo might have powder changes from lot to lot.
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There's a very specific "constellation of events" that can lead handloads to become an issue in the trial of an SD shooting. If they do, though, then the consequences can be very severe.

Even though there may be variations from lot to lot on factory rounds, if there's a question as to the performance of a factory round, the SD shooter can subpoena records or personnel from that factory and have that lot analyzed by his or her expert. OTOH, an SD shooter using his or her own handloads is faced with the problem of asking a judge to allow expert opinion testimony based on samples of evidence created by the defendant himself. If the SD shooter can't get his evidence admitted at trial, it's no good to him.

RX-79G said:
Meanwhile, guys are installing 3.5 connectors from target guns in their carry Glocks and no one calls that out. It all seems a little myopic.

If we really wanted to take this sort of thing seriously we'd only use common police issue unmodified guns, ammo and holsters.
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I wouldn't say that "no one calls that out." For example, here are some TFL threads:
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=483157&highlight=mods
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=481756
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=464518

The legal effect of gun mods often crops up in the "handloads/reloads and SD" threads, too. I haven't gone over to The High Road or GlockTalk (where I'm also found on occasion) to look for gun modification/legal issues threads, but I do know that they're out there.

However, gun mods lead to a different set of legal issues than handloads do.
 
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