Estimate the distance of firearm firing by necroscopic examination

Abstract

The judicial power often requires the forensic pathologist, in charge of the autopsy of someone who was shot, the evaluation of the distance the gun was fired. This evaluation must be careful and accurate. The authors, consulting the literature about it, found out that the writers who dealt with that the subject focused it in different ways. Based on such opinions and reports, and according to their owns experience, the authors: a) conclude that the chief element at the pathologist's disposal on which he must rely is the lesion itself, and, sometimes, the bullet; b) propose a classification of the modes of firing a gun, as for the distance, only establishing what can be found when the entrance lesion is examined.