How many times do you check out a gun at a gun store and leave your finger prints on the gun. Most places dont wipe down the guns and if the do they never take every print off the gun. So lets say you look at a rifle but decide its not exactly the one you want, the clerk puts it back on the rack. Later someone buys this very same gun and commits a crime with said gun. There is a chance that you have finger prints or partials on the gun. Lets even say they arrest the owner in possession of the gun.

While the gun was at the shop how many people handled the gun, how many prints are on the gun?

I dont think this is a good thing. Would you worry, even though you havent done a thing wrong...

Remember the Ol saying "If you didn't do anything wrong you have nothng to worry about." I wouldn't worry about it. We as people leave our prints on all sorts of things throughout our life. What are we supposed to do, live life with Latex gloves on? LOL. If your worried about it maybe you should have a silicone rag handy when you go look at guns.

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YouJustCantSeeMeLaughingIsAll

Well, I've been handling guns in guns shops and gun shows for 20 years, my fingerprints are on file with the FBI, and I haven't had any problems yet. What are the odds there would be a problem? Long enough I'm not too worried about it.

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Insert short witty words here

No problem here.

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WALSTIB

CSI will find some fuzz with your sweat DNA on it that fell out of your bellybutton and blew onto a crime scene. Oh no.
Just kidding.

I'm paranoid, but not that paranoid.

I saw a feller that handled guns with a handkerchief when I was in a gun shop many years ago...he said he was a bail bondsman. Clearly, he wasn't from around our area...because the Sheriff, Justice of the Peace and bondsman used to be the same feller.

Just like the Sheriff of Boone County.

The best remedy would be to eat potato chips and salted peanuts before handling the guns. Then, they have to wipe them down.

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Lost it all in a boat accident

The larger concern for me is all the people handling my consignment guns, and leaving their prints all over them. Shops aren't generally very good about wiping them down. When I have guns sit there for a long time, I'll periodically stop-by, have them pulled out of the case, and wipe them down myself.

I never gave this a thought till yesterday. Lets just say I was looking at a Kel-tec rifle in a certain CT gun store not long ago (february)

I cant be sure its the same one, but it makes you think...

A Weapon the Times Sq. Car-Bomb Suspect Didn?t Use - NYTimes.com

I didnt buy the one they had because it took S&W mags, not Beretta or Glock, that I already have. The ticket price was $395, I bought a pair of K-frame round but grips there that day, marked as J-frame...

Sounds like your concerned about touching the same gun the terrorist bought. I don't think your going to be linked to that. If all you did was look at it, that's all you did. I seriously wouldn't worry.

And I wonder how many other people picked up the same gun before and after you. You might be surprised at how many different fingerprints are on a gun shop gun.

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YouJustCantSeeMeLaughingIsAll

I don't worry about it....but I always wipe down a woman after an affair.

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Thirty characters. Exactly...

Fingerprints don't transfer as well as TV cop shows, Hollywood, etc, would have you believe. Dry your hands out under a blow dryer if it worries you or wear white gloves like people do when lookint at antiques.

I spent over 35 years as a security guard and related work. If anyone should be overly cautious it should be me as I have been ripped off etc., yet I am very unassumeing. My wife is the opposite. She is far more security minded than I am. Yesterday we were doing yard work at our vacant rental. She can be working alongside the truck, yet will lock it!
I am habitualy haveing to go get a key from her daily just to get in the truck, house, back yard or whatever! It has caused strife at times between us. However she has her reasons as she has been ripped off years ago before I knew her when she was very poor.
I refuse to live in fear of any kind. Yes, I have had trouble brought me a lot years ago, been ripped off, attacked, falsely accused, you name it!
I have always had a sense or nose for danger if you will. I have always probley been too trustworthy of people, and yes it has cost me a LOT! Yet here I am, scared up, and alive. I have never, and refuse to live my life paranoid or scared.

Life is way too short to worry about something like that. This country has to return to the basic concept of personal responsibility, and I think that is happening but it's a painfully slow process. For too long our society has trended toward the criminal becoming the victim and the victim becoming the criminal in some situations.

Same concept, different scenario. Some scumbucket trespasses my property, breaks and enters my home, takes the car keys and steals my car, a kitchen knife, and a gun. Said scumbucket then goes out and kills someone with the car, the knife, or the gun, and I'm the criminal? I think not.

I don't care if the gun was not locked up, or if it was hanging on the wall as a display etc. (except in some areas of the country that have storage laws of course) Should I have had the car keys and the kitchen knife locked in the gun safe as well?

Criminal = Trespass, Burglary, Theft, Murder

Me = Private property owner and law abiding citizen.

So no, I don't worry about my fingerprints on a gun because I am not a criminal.

(sorry about the rant but this particular subject really gets my goat)

What's to keep a gang-banger from picking up all your brass at the gun range.
Then the next time he goes out, and does a drive by shooting, he takes all that brass of yours he piked up at the range, and throughs it all over the street!

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Me. I pick up my brass, and everybody elses, and sell it to my local dealer, who resells it for more to someone who reloads it. Anyway, who cares? Unless you live in NY or some other state that is so (bleep)ed up that it is actually worse than MA, your cases can't be traced back to you, anyway. They may match if they ARE traced back, but they won't be.

Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

I don't think my fingerprints will register through the tinfoil.

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

Latent fingerprints are probably the most fragile form of physical evidence. It is rare to find identifiable fingerprints on a firearm. Don't believe me? Try taking a glass, put your print on it, hold it up to the light to see the latent print, now touch the latent print to see how easy it smears.

A lot of prints are found on magazines. Load the magazine, insert it into the pistol, the crooks wipe their prints off the outside of the pistol and forget their prints on the magazine.

Thanks guys, I feel a bit better about it...

Its kind of a strange feeling to know that just after I was in that store looking at that gun. The *** came in and bought it, its not something that happens every day, thank god.

Having a pistol permit here requires fingerprints taken and a fed check. You can let your mind wander...


The thought about the picked up brass dropped at a shooting. That's the argument I use against micro stamping.

Life goes on...

Whether people believe it or not, we already have gun registration. Any gun that you bought through a FFL can be traced directly back to you by BATF. Even if your print was on it, and it would be hard to identify it if it was, you've got nothing to sweat if the gun was traced back to the buyer.

Contrary to what some believe or think, fingerprints are easily left behind and they are found about everywhere a person can imagine. If the material is porous, then the fingerprints will not be identifiable. If it is smooth, they are there. Some places are natural targets for finding prints when you want them.

All this said, by the time a gun from a store has been used in a crime, so many people have touched it, your prints have been smeared or smudged that a match would almost be impossible to find. Different things have hot spots that are touched often. Guns are touched about the trigger, the grips, the cylinder (or mag) and not handled by the barrel. The next person to handle the gun will eliminate most of your prints. Two customers or employees later will wipe all your prints away.

In a car the best place to get prints is from the back side of the interior rear view mirror. A fresh driver (translated car thief) will adjust the mirror with his hand while holding the wheel with a rag. The mirror is not affected by weather or common passengers. The last driver will have left prints.

I would be more worried about getting struck by lightning on a sunny day.

That explains it!
I wondered why they questioned me about that Lincoln affair at Ford's.
I forgot to wipe that Derringer down before I sold it.......

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Regards,
Lee Jarrett

That's the argument I use against bottomfeeders.