Experts Absolutely Blast Daily Mail’s Idiotic Reporting on Bullet Matching Story

On Tuesday, the Daily Mail really stepped in it with its so-called reporting on the bullet that killed Charlie Kirk. It was an absolute trainwreck of misinformation, much of which was based on a complete lack of understanding about bullet matching.

Cam covered the story for Bearing Arms. I wrote about it at our sister site, Townhall. In short, the whole thing was stupid and wrong.

But hey, don’t take our word for it. Instead, listen to the other folks who spoke with Fox News about it.

Some reporting on the filing misinterprets the result of the bullet analysis, as it does not rule out it being from the Mauser rifle recovered near the crime scene, which prosecutors allege had Robinson’s DNA on it and had been given to him by his father. Instead, the filing noted it was inconclusive in definitively tying the bullet to the rifle, but that didn’t stop news organizations from publishing headlines that made it appear Robinson was essentially off the hook.

The Daily Mail published a story headlined, “Bullet used to kill Charlie Kirk did NOT match rifle allegedly used by suspect Tyler Robinson, new court filing claims,” that was quickly condemned.

“The headline from the Daily Mail is an egregious example of media malfeasance, designed to profit from the online conspiracy industry that’s emerged after Charlie’s assassination,” TPUSA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet told Fox News Digital.

…

Media Research Center associate editor Nicholas Fondacaro, a gun enthusiast and staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, believes the Daily Mail’s framing of the ballistic test results are an example of the “worst tendencies and instincts of British tabloid journalism.”

“The headline, X post, and first sentence of the article were intentionally worded to deceive the reader; to make it sound as though the bullet recovered from Kirk’s body didn’t match a test bullet fired from the recovered rifle. Only later in the article does it note the ATF wasn’t able to recover enough intact material from Kirk’s body to identify markings left by the barrel,” Fondacaro told Fox News Digital.

“When a bullet is fired from a gun, the barrel leaves markings on the soft copper jacket that are fairly consistent bullet-to-bullet, basically becoming a fingerprint for the gun,” Fondacaro continued. “Apparently, there was not enough left of the copper jacket to show that fingerprint.”

This isn’t uncommon at all. Ballistics experts see this regularly. Plus, even if it had been intact, it might still not have yielded a match despite being the bullet fired from Robinson’s alleged weapon.

Why? Because ballistics, as a subject, isn’t fool-proof. Cam termed it as more art than science, and that’s pretty accurate. You’re trying to match grooves that appear on a round fired by a particular gun that has also gone through a lot of friction, including a human body, and hoping that there’s enough there to make a match.

It’s not always possible.

Prosecutors love having that information because it’s handy at trial, but they’re also used to the ballistics not matching. Yes, the defense intends to use that to their benefit, but that doesn’t mean it’s evidence that Robinson didn’t pull the trigger.

The Daily Mail is catching heat because what they published was a prime example of why the media simply cannot be trusted, particularly on issues involving firearms. At best, the reporter didn’t know how little he or she knew about firearms and didn’t know to ask questions. At worst, this was nothing more than sensationalism designed to spur on the grifters trading on conspiracy theories about what sure looks to the rest of the world like an open and shut case.

Either way, it was journalistic malpractice at its finest. One is just stupidity, while the other is evil, but neither is acceptable or forgivable.

The Daily Fail just lived up to its nickname yet again.

Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to lie about gun owners and the Second Amendment. 

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