Desi-Katta (Country-Made Firearm) and Wound Ballistics A Review

The use of country made guns or ‘Desi-Kattas’ for criminal activities are rising in an exponential manner in India. Even though India has a very tough gun control act, it is home to the world's second largest civilian firearms in the world. This is reflected by the fact that in the year 2011 about 88% of all ‘murders by the use of firearms’ were committed by ‘illegal and unlicensed’ ones. Whenever a case of Desi-katta firearm injury is presented to the autopsy surgeon, he should refrain from making any categorical remarks especially with respect to range as most of them are derived from western literature which cannot be blindly applied to Desi-Kattas. Nevertheless it is appalling to know that little scientific research has been done in this field. There is an urgent need for multi-disciplinary and multi-centric research in order to understand this menace.