Homemade firearms

Homemade firearms are encountered in crime, and materials used in their construction vary markedly. Some of them are finished with household paint, and flakes of paint transferred to the criminal s clothing can be of considerable evidential value. The grips of some homemade firearms are metal and are sometimes covered with plastic adhesive tape. Plastic adhesive tape may also be used to tape magazines together for use with commercially manufactured firearms, so that the firearm can be reloaded rapidly. Fingerprints may be obtained from the tape and a comparison of tape ends with the ends of tape recovered from a suspect s home or workplace can yield very strong evidence if a physical match is obtained. The same applies to tool mark impressions from machine tools at a suspect s home or workplace. 

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