The study found that the examiners correctly matched the spent bullet to the barrel that fired it 98.8 percent of the time. The study also found that examiners with less than 10 years of experience did not reach different conclusions than examiners with more than 10 years of experience. The study sent 150 test sets to 185 firearm and tool mark examiners in 41 States, the District of Columbia, and internationally. This sample was the largest ever used for this type of experiment. A member of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Florida International University analyzed the results. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ), which funded this study, is also funding two ongoing studies that could provide information on the scientific foundation of firearm and tool mark examination as a forensic investigative tool. These studies are briefly described.
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