WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) - Wichita's got something special and that's helping bring in a $75 million project that will make the area a national leader in fighting gun crimes.

That's what Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) had to say Monday morning. They announced plans for a new gun crimes lab at Wichita State's Innovation Campus from the Wichita/Sedgwick County Law Enforcement Training Center.

“The future in fighting against violent crime in this country is going to come straight through Wichita, and specifically through Wichita State,” said ATF Director Steve Dettelbach.

Sen. Moran says the ATF’s new planned laboratory will create about 100 new jobs in the area.

“The technology that's being developed here and will be utilized here, helps us get criminals, particularly those who use guns, off the streets,” Moran said.

He added that the ATF’s new planned laboratory will create about 100 new jobs in the area.

The ATF says its lab will provide analysis of ballistics tests currently only available in one other lab in Huntsville, Alabama, provide forensics testing of DNA samples taken off guns, bullets, and casings, and research new ways of gathering evidence off firearms used in crimes.

“This laboratory is designed to use NIBIN (National Integrated Ballistic Integration Network) machines and initially we have a NIBIN machine here,” Moran said during the announcement, “that does ballistics so law enforcement sends in cases and they're analyzed.”

Moran believes the machine helped convince the ATF to pick Wichita for its new lab.

“When we get a crime gun, a gun that has been used in a crime, we are going to take everything we can on the outside of that gun, the inside of that gun, what comes out of the front of that gun, and what's ejected out the back to try and catch the shooter,” Dettelbach said.

Moran believes the machine helped convince the ATF to pick Wichita for its new lab. The Law Enforcement Training Center says while hundreds of cities around the country have a NIBIN collector, what they don’t have is the next part to analyze all the information coming out of the collector. Right now, that’s what they have to send to Huntsville, something which will change when the new Wichita lab opens up.

In addition to the equipment already on site, Moran says it’s Kansas workers and the training available to them that helped finally clinch the deal.

“The common denominator in most of these decisions, by anybody, to locate here is the technical expertise that Wichita State provides.  And our other universities, here and across the state, as well,” he said.  “The denominator is the capability of training, educating and developing a workforce that knows how to work and wants to work.”

Moran says he's been working on this deal for a few years.

The lab is just the latest in a series of businesses to announce an expansion or move into Kansas, from Panasonic’s battery factory and Integra’s HQ expansion to cybersecurity firm Novacoast moving to Wichita from California.

Moran, who works to recruit new businesses to the state, says that's to be expected.

“An employer decides that Kansas should be where they want to build their plant, want to hire people,” he said, “It sends a message to other business folks and others that maybe want to take a look at Kansas. ‘Somebody else found value and merit there. Let's see what they have.’”

Wichita State University says planning for the building to house the new lab is currently underway. The school is hopeful of a groundbreaking sometime in the next few months.