Homemade ‘ghost guns’ are the next frontier in the gun-control fight.
Under current federal policy, it’s legal to make a gun for your own personal use. You don’t need a license, and you don’t have to put a serial number on it, though you’re not allowed to make certain highly regulated types of guns without government approval.
Yet it’s not clear exactly how helpful businesses can be when it comes to supplying the parts. The usual gun laws kick in when a business sells a “firearm,” described this way in the statute books:
(A) any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive; (B) the frame or receiver of any such weapon; (C) any firearm muffler or firearm silencer; or (D) any destructive device. Such term does not include an antique firearm.
In December there was a raid on a company that sold “Buy Build Shoot” kits containing what it called “all the necessary parts,” including a frame that is 80 percent finished. These “80 percent” receivers, which have been sold openly and legally for years, require some machining before they’re usable.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reported that one of these kits could be built into a fully functioning gun in 21 minutes, and that an agent had made a fully functioning gun from another in three hours. The agency contended that this made the kits “firearms” under the law (and also “handguns” to boot), in which case it would be illegal for a business to sell them without background checks and the like.
Today comes the news that the Biden administration is considering an executive action to require background checks for these serial-number-less “ghost guns” as well. It’s not clear how broad the rule will be.
It’s a new frontier in the gun-control fight, and yet another example of what happens when gun laws are written with vague terminology.