Solving crimes can sometimes be a challenge.

That's why the federal ATF is partnering with the Appalachian high intensity drug trafficking area, often referred to as high tech, to bring a mobile crime tracing lab to rural parts of Kentucky.

And as you're about to see, the lab is proving to be a useful tool.

There are a lot of firearms here and ATF's challenges to figure out who is possessing those firearms unlawfully, how they're being sourced and provided to individuals that are prohibited from having them, and ultimately who's using them to commit violent crimes.

And so when you when you work in a state where they have a lot of firearms and it's really important that we work with our partners and that we are really scrutinizing the intelligence to help us figure out who should be the targets of our investigations.

We have 55 task forces led by federal, state and local agencies, and we are many of those are in very rural areas.

Many times, a task force may have search warrants conducted where they come into contact with the numerous amount of weapons that need to be vetted through the system.

This mobile unit allows us to take this to the locations that wouldn't otherwise.

They would not have the ability to access.

They would have to travel to a larger city to have this service.

It really is a unique opportunity for many of the smaller agencies.

This brings the sophistication to them that is available on a nationwide level.

You placed a firearm inside and you you fire around a test round and the bullet is captured safely in the whole.

Then it's analyzed by a tech that's on site there.

And then that forensic image is entered into the knife and system, which is then transmitted to its National Correlation Center, which is based in Huntsville, Alabama.

They will add additional intelligence related to the possessor of those guns.

And that's what drives our investigative strategy.

This helps us start the timeline.

It tells us where it was purchased, who purchased it and when it was purchased.

If it's used in another violent crime, if we have not recovered the crime gun, we continue to do this Niven process until the crime gun is officially recovered.

After that, we can put the timeline together and say it was purchased on this date by this person.

It was used in a violent crime a few months later.

It was used in a homicide a few months after that, and then a year after it was purchased, it was recovered.

It's like taking a fingerprint.

This is the new technology associated with firearms that allows, you know, each individual weapon will leave a distinct marking on the casing of a weapon and allows that to be compared with others that were seized across the nation to potentially tie investigations together or crimes that were committed in other areas together.

Helps them to better identify the drug trafficking organizations, their members and associates, their drug trafficking patterns, and then also who's in possession of firearms, who's using those guns to commit violent crime and where they're sourcing their firearms from.

It helps our investigators to make seizures, to take crime guns off the street, to seize dangerous drugs before they harm our communities.

This initiative is very important in terms of public safety here in Kentucky.

According to Agent Shawn Morrow, the drug task force's and the Appalachian hide to recover roughly 2000 guns a year that are used in or seized during the commission of a crime.