(Testimony of Cortlandt Cunningham Resumed)
Mr. Cunningham.
portion of the barrel which is next to the cylinder, as well as on the cylinder itself.
So you would expect to find gunpowder residues on a person's hands after he fired a revolver.
Mr. Eisenberg.
Do I understand your testimony to be that there is no equivalent gap in the manufacture of a rifle?
Mr. Cunningham.
That is correct.
Mr. Eisenberg.
Did you run any kind of a test with this revolver which would indicate whether it did in fact leave residues?
Mr. Cunningham.
Yes; I did, or we dad, three of us, Mr. Frazier, Mr. Killion, and myself. The tests were run on me. I was the one who washed my hands thoroughly. I did not use a brush, I just washed them with green soap and rinsed them in distilled water.
Mr. Eisenberg.
The purpose of this washing was what?
Mr. Cunningham.
To remove possible dirt from my hands. I washed my hands. The gun was then wiped off with dilute HCl to get rid of any deposits already on the gun, and I fired it in our bullet- recovery room, four times--and then after firing I opened it up and ejected the cartridge cases into my hand, as I showed you earlier today. The amount of residue that you pick up on your hands from ejection of the cartridge cases was in my hand at the time.
I then, under ideal conditions naturally, went back and had paraffin casts made of my hands and these were treated with a solution of diphenylbenzidine.
The results of this examination were that we got a positive result on both casts, front and back. Many reactions in this area where I had ejected the cartridge cases in my hand were noted.
Mr. Eisenberg.
By the way, you testified this morning that many common substances will produce a positive reaction to the nitrate test, so-called paraffin test.
Will the handling of an unclean weapon also produce a positive reaction?
Mr. Cunningham.
Just as much as firing it will. That is what makes this test so unreliable. Handling a recently fired weapon. that is covered with residues--you would get just as many oxidizing agents in the form of nitrates and nitrites on your hands as you would from firing it and in some cases more especially up here and around here you would.
Mr. Dulles.
Does the time between the tests, between the firing and the test, make very much difference, within a few hours?
Mr. Cunningham.
If the residues are on the skin they will react. In other words, if the material has been washed off completely, then you are all through, but if it remains on the skin or is imbedded in the pores of the skin it would still react, but so will so many other things.
Mr. Eisenberg.
Just to review for a second your testimony this morning, in the experiments that the FBI ran, a revolver or automatic pistol were used as opposed to rifles, as I recall it?
Mr. Cunningham.
Yes.
Mr. Eisenberg.
Were there any negative results following the shooting of the revolver or automatic pistol?
Mr. Cunningham.
None of those were negative results, but they were not run under the same conditions. By the way, with an automatic pistol you shouldn't expect to find any residues, for the same reason as with a rifle the cartridge is chamber, and the boltface comes in right behind.
Mr. Eisenberg.
Could you look at your notes for your first experiment, be cause as I recall there were some negative results on that,
Mr. Cunningham.
The only negative results were on the 20 people who were run as a control and who had never fired a gun, and even for those people they all got positive reactions at least on one hand.
Mr. Eisenberg.
I am talking about the first experiment now, not the second one.
Mr. Cunningham.
The first experiment--yes; that was true. This test was a little bit different.
In other words, they were not just taking people from their work. These people had washed their hands.
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