Topic: IBIS Gun Entry & Increased Submissions

[Raquel Pipkin]

Hello,

Does your lab currently process firearms for entry into IBIS only (no related fired evidence to compare)? If so, how many IBIS Tech do you currently have? Have you guys also seen a dramatic increase in these submissions? Have you changed anything due to the increased number of firearms being submitted? If so, what?

Sorry for all the questions! Just looking for insight on how other labs are doing things.

Thanks!
 

[Justine Kreso]

We test fire and enter everyone -- many of our hits are "found guns" for "NIBIN only."


However, we had a 75% increase in case submissions in 2020 due to the crime increase (as I know most cities did).  We've just been plugging along doing what we can knowing full well we will be getting a big ding from the ATF in regards to turnaround times.  Really nothing we can do considering the current climate right now.  Everyone is swamped.

Edited: We have one NIBIN Tech.  She doesn't TF guns, just enters CC's and TF'ed CC's.

[Julie Knapp]

pretty much the same as Justine, but we also encourage some of our customers to shoot their own TFs and just submit those for NIBIN entry.  If we shoot the guns, we have a few options/ways we can go about doing it.  PM me if you would like more information.

[Skip Richardson]

I second what others have said. We have select agencies that will test fire their own guns (we provide ammo and envelopes with blank spaces for firearm info). All other agencies just submit their guns to us for testing.



We have two NIBIN Techs that are now being trained as Firearm Examiners and we have a coverage area spanning eight parishes (counties). We're handling all cases as fast as we can. ATF regularly asks that we do our best to decrease entry times. We try our best.

[Ashleigh Vogel]

We have at least one technician at each lab that function tests firearms and enters them into NIBIN. I don't have any stats on 2020 handy, but the numbers seemed insane so most of the examiners pitched in and helped with the testing. We have very few agencies who take and submit their own test shots in my area. Feel free to PM me for more information. Our techs have been trained to test fire for a number of years.

[kksarai]

Hi from the Reno lab. We cover 13 counties across Northern Nevada. We have 2 part time NIBIN Techs and one trainee (eventually 3 part timers). We are mandated by law to enter all crime related pistols into NIBIN. We saw a huge increase in submissions last year and it is continuing into this year as well. We made a number of changes to include a task based approach where one tech can document the evidence and test fired the firearms and another can aquire/and or correlate. We also trained one of our techs as a IBIS trainer through ATF so he can train in lab anytime. This helped cross-train some people from other sections without a backlog (i.e. Breath Alcohol) to assist with IBIS casework as well. There are some other procedural changes we made too if you are interested, hit me up! We are currently meeting the 48 hour turn-around...but our submissions may be much lower than other labs.