One in an occasional series of Mark Di Ionno columns on gun culture in New Jersey

Realtors hang sales awards, doctors and lawyers hang their degrees.

At the Newark Police Ballistics Lab, the placards on the wall laud IBIS hits. The lab has made the 1000 club and the 2500 club, and is now closing in on 3000.

IBIS is the trademarked name of the Integrated Ballistics Identification System created by a Canadian company and used by federal, state and local ballistic labs nationwide. If you watched "CSI," you've heard of IBIS.

"It's the technology platform for the national ballistics (identification) program," said Detective Antonio Badim, senior member of the three-man lab. "Hits are matches of shell casings that link specific guns to crimes where no link previously existed."

These awards hang above a desk at which Detective Tony Pereira spends his day looking at computer images of shell casings and overlaying them on the screen to see if they match.

"One of the best examples (of how IBIS works) is the Brendan Tevlin case," said Anthony Ambrose, Newark's new public safety director. "We were able to match the casings to a weapon used (to kill two men) in Seattle. Without IBIS, we would have never made that connection."

Tevlin, a college student from Livingston, was shot multiple times at a stop light in West Orange in June 2014. The case made national news when suspect Ali Muhammad Brown claimed in writings that he was a jihadist. Brown awaits trial on four murders, including Tevlin's, but was sentenced to 36 years in jail last week for robbing a man at gunpoint not far from where Tevlin was killed.

MORE: Recent Mark Di Ionno columns

Ambrose was the Newark police director when he lobbied for the IBIS machine in 2002. The department got it in 2004, and Newark's lab quickly became nationally recognized, mostly because of Newark Detective Sgt. Luke Laterza.

Laterza is somewhat of a legend in forensic ballistic circles, not only for his expertise, but also for reducing Newark's tracing and matching backlog to zero, and expanding its service.

"They help us build cases and solve a lot of crimes," Ambrose said.

According to statistics from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Newark gets more matches by volume than any police lab in the country, except for New York City, Illinois (state police), Miami and Philadelphia.

This is not just a reflection of Newark crime. The lab handles ballistics for Paterson, Jersey City, Passaic, all of Hudson County, all of the ATF, some of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, and helps with State Police backlog.

"We do the whole Route 21 corridor, but we'll help as far as Trenton and Camden," Ambrose said. "The guys in that lab are very, very dedicated and do incredible work."

The work is mostly done with microscopes and computer images of casings or projectiles found at crime scenes. When a gun comes in, it is fired in a steel-plated water tank, and those casings and projectiles are entered in the IBIS system to determine if the gun has been used in other crimes.

Talking to the Newark ballistics crew about their work is like speaking to a geneticist about genetic coding. The detectives have their own nomenclature: ejector marks, rim fire, breech face marks, bullet and casing stria (lines) - all as unique to a gun as are fingerprints to a human.

The modern equipment looks out of place in the lab, which is in a 100-year-old old storage warehouse and not like something you see on "CSI."

There are boxes of guns and projectiles in plastic bags and envelopes, secured behind heavy fire doors with old-fashioned bolts and electronic locks.

Police asked that the location not be disclosed for obvious reasons. There are a lot of guns in there, seized in crimes or found on the streets.

In this way, the ballistics lab is not only part science lab, but part gun museum and part commentary on modern culture.

On the walls are two pegboards of guns taken off Newark streets. Some are antiques, like a double-barreled pistol from the 1800s that shot metal balls. Some are novelties, like a .25 miniature revolver ensconced in a belt buckle. And others have to be seen to be believed, from a grenade launcher to an Eliot Ness-era Tommy gun.

But most are powerful handguns, some made only for the purpose of spraying bullets.

Some are toys made to look like guns, and some are guns made to look like toys. A Umarex Airsoft pistol taken off the street has all the trademarks of a real Smith & Wesson M&P45. Smith & Wesson sells its trademark to many airsoft and BB gun makers. On the flip side is the Diamondback .223 semi-automatic pistol which is painted a sand color that makes it appear to be plastic.

The guns go through ballistics testing and matching, and are then held in another secure part of the building until needed for trials.It's the kind of behind-the-scenes science that helps build cases with hard evidence.

"When you're on patrol, you arrest a guy and lock him up," said Detective Lamar Melvin, the newest member of the team.

"Here, you help close the case. You keep the guy in jail."

Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.