Humane Killing Tools

: Pollak S, Saukko P

: Siegel JA, Saukko PJ, Houck MM

Publisher: Elsevier, Academic Press

: Waltham

: 2013

: Encyclopedia of Forensic Sciences

: 130

: 135

: 978-0-12-382165-2

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-382165-2.00267-1

‘Humane killing tools’ (livestock stunners) are used to induce immediate unconsciousness before slaughtering animals. In current practice, mainly captive-bolt guns are used in abattoirs, butchers shops, and farms. In this kind of narcotic devices, a steel rod (‘bolt’) is driven by the explosion gases of a blank cartridge and propelled a few centimeters beyond the muzzle. In shots to the neurocranium, the distal end of the bolt causes a sharp-edged circular punch lesion of the skin, the underlying skull, and the brain. Some makes of captive-bolt guns have smoke outlets on the muzzle end producing a characteristic soot pattern in contact and close-range shots. Most of the fatal injuries in humans are occupation-related suicides committed by butchers and farmers being familiar with slaughtering guns. This article describes the wound characteristics of injuries from captive-bolt devices and gives examples from the forensic autopsy material.