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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

Like all those unarmed 7-12 year olds that "looked like they had something in their hands", or the dozens of people killed or arrested which then had guns planted of them?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/st-louis-officer-execut...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds6g-QyAxbw

https://abcnews.go.com/US/baltimore-officers-planted-gun-man...

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Cops get too trigger happy all the time, but in this case the activist had a gun that forensics matched to a bullet in a state trooper’s stomach. From the GBI’s press releases [1]:

> Today, the GBI received confirmation from a firearms transaction record that in September 2020, Manuel Esteban Paez Teran legally purchased the firearm that was used in the shooting of a GSP trooper.

> The handgun is described as a Smith & Wesson M&P Shield 9mm. Forensic ballistic analysis has confirmed that the projectile recovered from the trooper’s wound matches Teran’s handgun

1. https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2023-04-14/gbi-invest...

Forensic bullet analysis is phrenology for bullets:

https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/devil-in-the-grooves-the-...

It's not just about matching imprints on the bullet to the barrel. They likely also checked the ammo against what was in the magazine, and I doubt Teran had the same ammo as the police. It might be the same caliber (9mm luger) but there are many different brands of ammunition and bullet types. Atlanta police use Winchester PDX1 147 grain. Most people use lighter hollow points that cost less. Also Atlanta police use Gen 4 Glocks, which have polygonal rifling. Bullets fired from polygonal rifling have very different imprints than those fired from traditional rifling with lands and grooves.

It sounds so believable that a protestor bought and owned an M&P Shield, a gun extremely popular with police, and brought it to a protest. It's also super believable that while surrounded by armed police that this person decided to shoot a single round at an officer from a sitting position.

Super. Believable.

A 7+1 rounds pistol with a safety switch is extremely popular with police? I'd like to see some source for that.

The GSP service firearm is a Glock, FWIW.

Ballistic analysis is useless. Video proof or they are lying. Deep South America is more of a police state than people realize.

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