Not a chemist here, so please be gentle: From tv/books/movies, I’ve gathered that the ‘residue’ tested for when checking to see if someone has fired a gun recently is nitrates.
I also know that some people add nitrates as a preservative to the mix when making sausages.
Are these the same type of nitrates? As in, if you had been hand mixing sausages, would you test positive on the gunshot test despite not having fired a gun? Alternately, if you actually had fired a gun, could you then mix up some sausages and have a valid way of explaining away the gunshot test results?
(BTW, I am planning to murder only fictional people, in case anyone worries.)
In the Robert Blake murder case, they said that the scientists could even tell what brand of gunpowder was used, so I dont think nitrates from any other source would be confused. They also do pattern tests on hands,fingers, etc, to see how the gun was held by the shooter, if it was the same kind of gun that was held and leaked gas in the same manner that that type of gun would leak gas, etc. It sounds pretty sophisiticated how they now do the tests.
Well, at least one test tests for common primer compounds: antimony and barium. So unless you’re putting some mighty interesting sausages together, I doubt the nitrates in the sausage would conceal your activities.
OTOH, the sausage filling could quite possible carry away sufficient material to reduce the primer compounds to below detectable levels.
According to the National Institure of Justice (US), washing with soap and water can effectively compromise the test.
Google found both these sites, and thousands more, in less than a single second.
That’s fine… in the end, once all the red herrings have been smoked out.
Not so! There are several mystery writes who make fabulous amounts of money from crime.
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You are kidding! You mean all you have to do is wash your hands a time or two?
My respect for criminals drops another six notches. The silly bastards can’t even be bothered to wash their hands after killing someone? Tsk, tsk.
OTOH, excellent news for my fictional murderer.
Well, I don’t imagine many criminals are sitting around Googling up ways to avoid being busted. Also, even for your avarage criminal, shooting someone has to be pretty disturbing, and they’re probably not thinking too straight. Lastly, there’s the issue of opportunity: If you’re busted before you can get your act together, you’re still going to wind up featured in some lab tech’s “Positive Gunshot Residue Test” report, no matter how much you know about the process…
