Tag Archives: FBI

FBI Gun Collection

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Gun collection

FBI Gun Collection. Source: FBI.

 

Earlier this month, the FBI posted a story about the agency’s reference firearms collection. Started in 1933, the collection of 7,000 firearms is stored at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.

FBI Lab firearms examiners use the assembly of weapons to study and test firearms in support of current investigations. The library of handguns and rifles includes a database of typical marks made by the weapons, and more than 15,000 types of commercial and military ammunition. Suppressors, magazines, muzzle attachments, grenade launchers and rocket launchers also reside here.

“Oftentimes this collection is used in active cases in comparing known samples from our collection with question samples from the field,” explained FBI firearms examiner John Webb. “Often, an investigator will receive a part of a firearm or a firearm that isn’t functional. We can take that and compare it with our reference collection, determine what isn’t functioning, and repair it so we can obtain the test fires we need to conduct examinations with bullets and cartridge cases.”

 

FBI and DOJ Consider Errors in Forensic Evidence

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Questioning forensics

Questioning forensics

 

In the last posting, we saw how an error in DNA analysis can muddy a criminal investigation. But, forensic errors can yield graver consequences, such as a wrongful conviction.

During April 2012, The Washington Post reported that Justice Department officials had known for years about flawed forensic work that might have led to the convictions of potentially innocent people, and that the DOJ had not performed a thorough review of the cases. The Post declared that hair and fiber analyses were subjective and lacked grounding in solid research, and that examiners overstated the significance of a match.

On July 13, the newspaper announced that the DOJ and the FBI launched a review of thousands of criminal cases. The objective is to decide if any defendants were wrongly convicted because of flawed forensic evidence.

The FBI’s post-conviction review will include cases with forensics performed by all FBI Laboratory hair and fiber examiners since at least 1985. These examinations were conducted for both federal and local investigations.

The Washington Post’s story, “Justice Dept., FBI to review use of forensic evidence in thousands of cases,” includes links to articles about the reliability of various types of forensic analysis.