Actually, you are definitely tampering with evidence if you remove the can after shooting someone. After all, why would you take it off unless you thought it made you 'look guilty'?
Would they find out? Maybe. I guess it depends on the other evidence. For example if the forensic person was expecting powder burns due to the distance and there weren't any to be found.
The thing is if they did find out, your self-defense case would be pretty much out the window. The judge would instruct the jury to take your guilty behavior (tampering with the gun) as evidence of your guilt. Since the burden of proof is essentially (if not legally) on you to prove your innocence, that kind of jury instruction would be devastating even if every other piece of evidence exonerated you.
If you have a gun to use in self-defense, it's because you were concerned about the worst-case possibilities around a criminal encounter.
You have to think the same way about what would happen if you do need to use the gun. The folks who shrug that off and think the cops will just pat them on the back and tell them what a hero they are not thinking 'worst case' anymore, they are indulging in wish fulfillment.
We recently saw exactly this kind of 'worst case' scenario in the Zimmerman-Martin incident. That whole encounter was so 'typical' a self-defense encounter that it could have been a generic example from a textbook. Instead it turned into the biggest, most heavily examined trial since O.J.
Now imagine that level of scrutiny, and it comes out that you used a silencer! Heck, everyone knows only spies and assassins use silencers! Are you a spy? No... then you must be an assassin. This is like Silence of the Lambs right? You hunted that poor burglar, who was only stealing your TV so he could feed his 12 starving children, with your 'ghost gun' and shot him to death without making a sound!
And then it comes out that you tampered with the very murder weapon itself, trying to hide your guilt and get rid of that damning and deadly piece of evidence.
This will not end well.
Would they find out? Maybe. I guess it depends on the other evidence. For example if the forensic person was expecting powder burns due to the distance and there weren't any to be found.
The thing is if they did find out, your self-defense case would be pretty much out the window. The judge would instruct the jury to take your guilty behavior (tampering with the gun) as evidence of your guilt. Since the burden of proof is essentially (if not legally) on you to prove your innocence, that kind of jury instruction would be devastating even if every other piece of evidence exonerated you.
If you have a gun to use in self-defense, it's because you were concerned about the worst-case possibilities around a criminal encounter.
You have to think the same way about what would happen if you do need to use the gun. The folks who shrug that off and think the cops will just pat them on the back and tell them what a hero they are not thinking 'worst case' anymore, they are indulging in wish fulfillment.
We recently saw exactly this kind of 'worst case' scenario in the Zimmerman-Martin incident. That whole encounter was so 'typical' a self-defense encounter that it could have been a generic example from a textbook. Instead it turned into the biggest, most heavily examined trial since O.J.
Now imagine that level of scrutiny, and it comes out that you used a silencer! Heck, everyone knows only spies and assassins use silencers! Are you a spy? No... then you must be an assassin. This is like Silence of the Lambs right? You hunted that poor burglar, who was only stealing your TV so he could feed his 12 starving children, with your 'ghost gun' and shot him to death without making a sound!
And then it comes out that you tampered with the very murder weapon itself, trying to hide your guilt and get rid of that damning and deadly piece of evidence.
This will not end well.
