In 2021, about 20,000 suspected ghost guns were recovered by law enforcement in criminal investigations and reported to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The figure marked a tenfold increase from 2016, according to the White House.
Ghost guns are firearms that are privately assembled and untraceable. They can be assembled from "buy build shoot" kits or from other parts or they can be 3D-printed. Unlike other guns, these weapons don't have serial numbers. The Department of Justice's "Frame or Receiver" final rule focuses on these "buy build shoot kits."
Earlier this year, police found a ghost gun at a Maryland high school after a student allegedly shot another student. And in 2019, a 16-year-old used a ghost gun to shoot five students before shooting himself at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, Calif.
On the West Coast, San Francisco police seized more than 190 ghost guns in 2021, amounting to 20% of all guns seized by the department. And in Los Angeles, 24% of the 8,121 guns seized in 2021 were ghost guns.
The final rule will also help turn some ghost guns already in circulation into serialized firearms. Through this rule, the Justice Department is requiring federally licensed dealers and gunsmiths taking any unserialized firearm into inventory to serialize that weapon. For example, if an individual builds a firearm at home and then sells it to a pawn broker or another federally licensed dealer, that dealer must put a serial number on the weapon before selling it to a customer. This requirement will apply regardless of how the firearm was made, meaning it includes ghost guns made from individual parts, kits, or by 3D-printers.
A 9mm pistol build kit with a commercial slide and barrel with a polymer frame is displayed before President Joe Biden and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco speak in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, April 11, 2022, to announces a final version of its ghost gun rule, which comes with the White House and the Justice Department under growing pressure to crack down on gun deaths.. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
The White House and the Justice Department argue that regulating the firearms parts and requiring dealers to stamp serial numbers on ghost guns will help drive down violent crime and aid investigators in solving crimes. Gun groups, however, argue that the government is overreaching and that its rule violates federal law.
Ghost guns, however, are made of parts and are then assembled together. The critical component in building an untraceable gun is what is known as the lower receiver. Some are sold in do-it-yourself kits and the receivers are typically made from metal or polymer.
Federal officials have been sounding the alarm about the growing black market for homemade, military-style semi-automatic rifles and handguns. And guns without serial numbers have been turning up more frequently at crime scenes. They have also been increasingly encountered when federal agents buy guns in undercover operations from gang members and other criminals.
Justice Department statistics show that nearly 24,000 ghost guns were recovered by law enforcement at crime scenes and reported to the government from 2016 to 2020. The New York Police Department said officers found 131 firearms without serial numbers since January.
The Biden administration unveiled new regulations for "ghost guns" on Monday, April 11, in a move that advocates say will help reduce gun violence. The new rules will help law enforcement track and trace these firearms, which authorities say are increasingly involved in crimes.
Ghost guns are unregistered and untraceable homemade weapons that can be made with a 3D printer or assembled from a kit. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, such weapons are contributing to a rise in gun violence, reported CBS News' Jeff Pegues in February. The weapons can be produced for less than $200, though officials have put the average price at around $500.
Countless websites offer kits for everything from handguns to AR-15s and AK-47s, as CBS News found in 2018, when correspondent Carter Evans was able to purchase a kit for a gun similar to a Glock 9mm with no background check or waiting period.
"If you're a felon or judged mentally unfit, for example, federal law says you're not supposed to have any kind of firearm. Build a ghost gun? No one knows you have it," Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva told "60 Minutes" correspondent Bill Whitaker in 2020.
A senior administration official said the ATF was able to trace fewer than 1% of the approximately 45,000 ghost guns recovered during criminal investigations between January 2016 and December 2021, reported CBS News' Bo Erickson. Almost 700 of the incidents were homicides or attempted homicides, the official said.
Ghost guns have been involved in school shootings, such as one in Saugus, California, where a 16-year-old killed four people, and in mass shootings, like one in Northern California where a 44-year-old used a ghost gun to kill five people despite a court order prohibiting him from having guns.
The ghost gun industry has skirted the law and fueled violence by creating a dangerous market in gun build kits and other products that allow people to arm themselves and assemble untraceable weapons without background checks or other protections.
The ghost gun crisis has also grown worst in places with the strongest gun safety laws, where gun traffickers and others legally disqualified from buying firearms are most motivated to turn to other sources to acquire deadly weapons.
When law enforcement agencies recover firearms that have been used in crimes, the agencies can usually trace the firearms to their first retail purchaser and use that information to investigate and solve the crime. Tracing is a powerful investigative tool, but it is dependent on the ability to identify firearms based on their serial numbers. Because the purveyors of the parts and kits used to make untraceable guns claim that they are not selling firearms, they also assert that these serialization requirements do not apply to them. Without a serial number, law enforcement cannot run a trace search on a firearm, making it difficult, if not impossible, in many cases to determine the chain of custody from the gun itself.
With that code publicly available, anyone with an internet connection and a 3D printer could produce a fully functional and unserialized firearm without a background check. And because these downloadable guns can be made entirely, or almost entirely, from plastic, they may be undetectable at security checkpoints that use metal detectors.
Other tragedies have been narrowly averted. In Pennsylvania, a police officer responding to a call outside Philadelphia shot and killed a person who was legally prohibited from accessing guns but had threatened to shoot the officer with a homemade gun made with parts he ordered online.10 The following month, police averted a school shooting outside Philadelphia by a student who had assembled an untraceable gun he had purchased online.11
Some states have taken stronger action by passing comprehensive state level legislation to reform the ghost gun industry and curb the proliferation of other related products like 3D printers and milling machines designed to produce firearms and key firearm components.
A privately made firearm (also referred to as a ghost gun or homemade firearm) is a legal term for a firearm produced by a private individual as opposed to a corporate or government entity.[1] The term "ghost gun" is used mostly in the United States by gun control advocates, but it is being adopted by gun rights advocates and the firearm industry because of recent regulations adopted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.[2]
Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968 or the GCA, to expand interstate commerce controls over common firearms like handguns, shotguns and rifles.[23] The GCA requires those who are "engaged in the business" of manufacturing or dealing in firearms to be licensed by the ATF.[38] Federal firearms licensees are required to mark their firearms' serial numbers and keep records of their transactions. The GCA also prohibits certain categories of persons, like convicted felons, domestic abusers, current users of illicit drugs and others, from possessing firearms.
In 2014, the California Legislature passed a bill to require serial numbers on receiver blanks and all other firearms, including antique guns,[43] but it was vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown.[44] However, in 2016, it passed a measure requiring anyone planning to build a homemade firearm to obtain a serial number from the state (de facto registration) and pass a background check.[45] From July 1, 2024, "firearm precursor parts" may only be sold through a licensed dealer.[46]
Since October 1, 2019, all manufactured guns must have a serial number obtained from the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection engraved.[51] Any plastic gun that "after removal of grips, stocks and magazines, is not ... detectible" by metal detectors is banned under Connecticut law.[52]
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