Posted by buck460XVR: ...add to that, the fact that none of the anti-handload crowd has EVER been able to give an example of where the use of handloads, in a legitimate SD scenario, has been the reason for a bad shoot conviction, tells me that zero cases outta thousands means the probability of it happening is improbable.
Very true. It is indeed.
There are reasons for that--good ones. But they do not mean that it should not be a concern. Here's why. Pardon the length of the explanation.
First, there have not been very many claims of justification in shooting incidents that have been the subject of much in the way of disputed evidence.
Of those that have, even fewer have depended in large part on forensic evidence.
And of those, still fewer have depended entirely on resolving contradictory evidence by making discrete shooting distance estimates that had to be based on GSR pattern evidence. It is one thing to say that the pattern on the shirt differed from that on the decedent's body, and quite another to make discrete distance estimates.
So far so good, and what it tells us is that when one steps out in the morning, one's chances of needing to end up having to present test evidence is far less than remote.
Also, of any disputed self defense claims that may have come up in which distance estimates based on GSR may have been needed, we are unaware of any in which the defender used hand loads. That should not be a surprise to anyone.
It will explain to any reasonable person why we have not heard of any actual cases. Of course, there are other reasons: trials are determined by the totality of the evidence; and no one has interviewed all of the jurors in all of the self defense trials in the country to determine the reasons for their findings.
But
should one's acquittal happen to hinge upon distance estimates requiring GSR test evidence, one's fate might well be sealed by the question of the admissibility of said evidence. At that point we have entered the realm of
conditional probability. And when it comes to risk management, that's an entirely different animal.
I do not carry hand-loads for self defense. I would not worry very much about using them indoors, however. And if I happened to arrive at the campsite equipped only with hand loads, I would not go very far out of my way to replace them. And if all I had next to the bed was a .41 Colt loaded with hand loads, I would take my chances. But it it is easy to mitigate the risk, I will do so.
There is quite a science surrounding the making of assessments--risk assessments, forecasts, performance assumptions, estimates of cost, schedule, weight, and so on--when there is a paucity of directly relevant actual data. The task is not at all like actuarial predictions, or auto safety data.
Back during the early days of my long corporate career, when we were first putting man into space, we dealt with those issues all the time.
Later, I was heavily involved in legal issues. The statement "no one has ever been convicted because..." was on a list on the wall. The title of the list was "famous last words."