There is no such thing as magic bullets.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Firearms expert Michael Jackson is prompted to make that conclusion while reflecting on a case he worked on in South Africa years ago.
A man accused of murdering his wife claimed he was hitting the woman over her head, while holding a gun, when it accidently went off.
"The problem was the trajectory through the head was pretty much from the centre of her eyebrows to the back of her head," Mr Jackson said.
"I had to educate the court that the whole John F Kennedy magic bullet theory was just rubbish."
The husband was convicted of murder.
Mr Jackson is a firearms and tool mark expert based at the Australian Federal Police forensic building in Majura.
He is one of the specialists prosecutors call to give evidence in criminal trials.
Mr Jackson, who has some 29 years experience, says that each firearm has its own unique "signature" that carries across to fired bullets and cartridge cases.
That means he can match fired bullets and cartridge cases found at a scene to a particular gun.
Giving evidence in court, he'll say it's either a positive match, a negative match, or the result is inconclusive.
"But that's where I stop. I can't put that [firearm] into an assailant's hands. Unless I have a crystal ball," he says.
That is the role of investigators.
After test firing the gun into a water chamber, Mr Jackson will compare patterns on the bullets or cartridges from the test shots to those found at the scene.
Some cases take less time, and some take more, he says, but the work is not like on television.
"We don't solve cases in half and hour," he says. "I don't have lights on a thing and bing, results."
After several years as a sworn officer in South Africa, Mr Jackson fell into the field he now specialises in.
He holds qualifications from South Africa, the UK, as well as a graduate certificate in forensic firearm examination from the Canberra Institute of Technology.
In another South African case Mr Jackson worked on, a man accused of murdering a police officer claimed he had been five metres away from the officer when he fired eight shots at the man.
When a shot is fired, burnt propellant particles are also shot out in conical pattern.
The closer the gun to the object shot, the smaller the diameter of the particles on the surface.
In this case, there were patterns on the police officer's body around where the bullets had entered.
That meant Mr Jackson could make conclusions about the range from where a person was shot.
He could say that the accused was between half a metre to a metre away from the police officer when he shot him.
And not the five metres he had alleged.
Mr Jackson was explaining his findings when the man's defence counsel asked him: "Why did you do it on the paper?"
Mr Jackson said they use paper to test the guns because the burnt particles impregnate the paper and show a pattern they can use to compare to the wounds.
"Why didn't you do it on human skin?" the barrister asked.
"I just kept quiet. Just looked at him, until the answer dawned in his own mind. And the judge turned to him and said, 'Ah … I think the answer's quite obvious'.
"[The lawyer said] no further questions. And he sat back down. That's priceless."
More than 300 cases come across Mr Jackson's and the team's desk each year.
He says he does not see that his evidence is for either a police case or a defence case. "I'm simply there to provide evidence to the court," he says.
Most difficult for the ballistics expert about his work is cases involving children.
"The hardest part is probably kids being shot. That sucks," he says.
"Just emotionally hard. That really blows."