The Association of Firearm and Toolmarkers [AFTE] focus on defending ballistic matching via alluding “black-box” studies (one of PCAST’s references) are not representative of the entire group. They also point to in-house reliability testing as a substitute. Overall, this public statement is much more measured than what’s come out of the District Attorneys and US DOJ /FBI but is similar in its effect that all their research and foundational studies are sufficient. Here’s an interesting excuse about funding, which hardly moots what forensic issues which includes the unmentionable: wrongful convictions.

“It is true that the majority of past research has been conducted by AFTE members, because while DNA and fingerprints have applications outside of forensics (such as medicine and biometrics), firearm identification has few profit-making applications and does not garner research attention from the private sector.”

afte-pcast-response