Armas Blancas

What is a “Sharp gun”?

Sharped guns are injurious instruments of varied structures and diverse forms, a

characteristic of these kind of guns is that are hand-operated, it aim is the body surface

with the help of cutting edges.

A wound/injury to the body occurs when the force applied to the body is greater than

the body's ability to absorb such force. Injury mechanism refers to the various forces

commonly associated with trauma (projectile, sharp, blunt, thermal and poly trauma).

Accurate identification of mechanism is dependent on pattern recognition as well as the

contributions of intrinsic and extrinsic factors that dictate the way wounds/injuries [3].

For example, similarly-shaped striking surfaces produce different patterns if they impact

at different velocities.


Which are the types of sharped guns?

There is no such classification of sharped guns, the division is made because of the lots

of injuries that are identified so, the classification of wounds is:

Blunt Force Injury: On the body due to blunt forces or instruments, these injures are on

skin and scratches, grazing, bruising are observed.

Abrasions: In this type of injuries the skin in which the outer layer of the skin is

scarped off. Examples of the abrasions are scratches, grazing of the skin caused by

dragging, imprint caused by belt/hunter/sticks.

Contusions/Bruises: This type of injuries occurs when blood vessels in the skin

or internal organ are ruptured. A bruise heals by destruction and removal of the

extravagated blood. The color change is very variable, starts at the periphery and

extends inwards to the center. At first its color is red, after few hours to 3 days it

converted in to blue on 4th days is changes into bluish-black. When bruising is

extensive and deeply situated the color takes longer time to appear externally.

Lacerations: Lacerations are tears or splits of skin, mucous membranes, muscle

or internal organs produced by application of blunt force or broad are of the body.

Types of lacerations are split lacerations (crushing of the skin between two hard

objects), stretch lacerations (overstretching of skin), avulsion, tears etc.

Sharp Force Injury: these are caused by cutting or stabbing the skin with sharp

instruments/weapons such as knives, swords, tins, broken glass bottles, razor blade and

tools (screw driver etc.). There are three types of sharp force injuries explain as under

Incised/cuts Injury: This type of wound is a superficial injury in which the size

of the injuries on the surface is larger than the depth of the injuries generally made of

razor blade, axe and swords.

Stab/Penetrating/Puncture Injury: This type of injury is produced from the

penetration of pointed / sharp instruments/ weapons on to the depth of the body that is

deeper than its length, generally knives, broken glass bottles and tools. The stab injuries

may be single or multiple.


How is determined the type of sharped gun implicated in a crime, from the wounds

that are produced in the victim?

What information of the dead circumstances can be told from the characteristics

of the wounds?

Now it is clearly be seen that stab wounds usually are deeper than they are wide. They

are also more likely to be distorted by the victim's twisting and turning to fend off an

attacker. Incised or cut wounds are caused when a sharp instrument is drawn across the

skin as. Unlike stab wounds they have no characteristic width or depth and thus reveal

little of the nature of the weapon. These wounds are rarely fatal but when they are

usually are suicidal or homicidal. Suicidal wounds typically are found on the victim's

wrists and rarely on the neck. Suicidal incised wounds frequently are accompanied by

hesitation marks.

In all injuries/ wound related cases the total number or wounds should be recorded and

each would in carefully measured and it's characteristics described with photography. A

blunt force injury comes from impact with a blunt object or something with no sharp

edges.

Forensic expert determine the direction of impact, the type of object that caused it and

how often the contact was made, often they're made by blows from a hammer or axe

head. Bite marks are also a form of crushing wounds. With a knife or incised wounds

the crime scene investigator must make a distinction between cut and stab or puncture

wounds and among different types of piercing implements such as an ice pick or small

knife. Most knives have a flat edge and a sharp edge which can be seen in the wound

angels. Some wounds are defensive such as cuts made on the palms or fingers of a

victim's hands. Sometimes cuts are associated with suicidal gestures are known as

hesitation wounds as the person attempts to inflict self-damage.


Jonathan P. Wyatt, Tim Squires, Guy Norfolk, and Jason Payne-James. (2011). Oxford

University. Forensic pathology of physical injury. Obtained from:

http://oxfordmedicine.com/view/10.1093/med/9780199229949.001.0001/med-

9780199229949-chapter- 005