Michael just drops the gun in restaurant with his fingerprints on it?

Quiet wasn't a concern. Clemenza told Michael that they left it loud intentionally to scare any bystanders away. You are correct though about .22s or other quieter rounds being used for many mob hits so as not to attract any extra attention.

That scene always cracks me up. Michael was told "a million times" to drop the gun after doing the deed. As he leaves the restaurant, he most intentionally flings the gun at the last minute as if he's thinking, "oh, yeah, I'm supposed to drop this thing".




He who conquers himself is mightier than he who conquers a city.

I can't tell if you're joking or not, but...when a gun is described as "cold," it usually means that it can't be traced, not that fingerprints can't adhere to its surface. As to why Clemenza hid it in the old fashioned toilet box, that was to make it easy for Michael to locate, but difficult for anyone else to see or find accidentally.

Actually, that is not what "cold as they come" meant in that scene at all.

In fact, a "cold gun" meant that it would be impossible to trace the gun based on the identification numbers that were kept on guns, as they are even today.

In short, a "cold gun" was one that so far removed from use (in this case "hot" or "heat" can be used as an idiom for how much use it had in fighting).

Both serial numbers on weapons, as well as forensic testing on bullets, were things to be studied by police before even World War 2 - so having a weapon that had been used in multiple crimes (something that the police would search for, especially after Michael killed a Police Captain) would be especially damning for Michael to have, as it would make the gun easier to "trace".

As for the temperature being a factor - that is not a an issue in this case.

A cold piece of metal will be more likely to have finger prints on it, because Michael's own natural body heat in his hand is the source of the natural oils in our skin that stick to surfaces and collect the natural pollen/dust in the air to create finger prints. A cold piece of metal will not stop the temperature in Michael's body from causing his skin to have oils in it which keep skin moist/flexible and - consequentially - let the oils stick to things like metal.

A radiator is used to move warm water through a building for heat - putting even a "cold gun" near a radiator would actually heat the metal of the gun, no matter how "cold" it was via temperature.

The pipes behind the toilet were not radiator pipes for warmth; they were the standard pipes used to collect water above the toilet and lower it down into the bowl below - as in an old fashioned toiler (sometimes called a "water closet") - and were a good place to hide the gun as no random customer in the restaurant would have any reason to reach behind the water tank to a toilet and feel around by coincidence - so it would be very unlikely that anyone would discover the gun by accident.

So to clarify - in this case "cold" meant the relative distance the weapon had from use in various crimes that could link the weapon to other killings; and since "use in crimes" is often referred to as "heat" then a "cold gun" is so far removed from other crimes that it should not be connected to anything else.

Finally, it was not a "new" gun that was simply purchased at a store at the last minute, to make sure that a police officer couldn't identify the gun via the serial number on it and trace it back to a shopkeeper and ask questions on who bought it and trace it up through the family that way.

"cold as they come" doesn't refer to the temperature of the steel. It means it cannot be traced to any previous owner. It would be a dead end to police trying to trace where it came from and thus connect someone to the crime.

"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules. "
-Walter Sobchak

When he said 'as cold as they come' he meant that the gun was untraceable.