Biden Admin Warns About the Dangers of "Ghost Guns"

Biden Admin Warns About the Dangers of "Ghost Guns"


The Biden Administration on Monday introduced new firearms measures, releasing a “fact sheet” to introduce voters to the apparent dangers of “ghost guns.”

In a statement from the White House, Biden said that he and the Deputy Attorney General announce “that the U.S. Department of Justice has issued a final rule to rein in the proliferation of “ghost guns” – unserialized, privately-made firearms that law enforcement are increasingly recovering at crime scenes in cities across the country. Last year alone, there were approximately 20,000 suspected ghost guns reported to ATF as having been recovered by law enforcement in criminal investigations – a ten-fold increase from 2016. Because ghost guns lack the serial numbers marked on other firearms, law enforcement has an exceedingly difficult time tracing a ghost gun found at a crime scene back to an individual purchaser.

The statement continues: “This final rule bans the business of manufacturing the most accessible ghost guns, such as unserialized “buy build shoot” kits that individuals can buy online or at a store without a background check and can readily assemble into a working firearm in as little as 30 minutes with equipment they have at home. This rule clarifies that these kits qualify as “firearms” under the Gun Control Act, and that commercial manufacturers of such kits must therefore become licensed and include serial numbers on the kits’ frame or receiver, and commercial sellers of these kits must become federally licensed and run background checks prior to a sale – just like they have to do with other commercially-made firearms.

Biden brought one of the Ghost Gun kits to the press conference on Monday, saying: “If you buy a couch you have to assemble, it’s still a couch. If you order a package like this one over here that includes the parts that you need and directs the assembly of a functioning firearm, you bought a gun … Anyone can order it in the mail.”

Another rule was introduced on Monday that would see ghost guns already in circulation turn into “serialized firearms.”

Through this rule, the statement says, “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. “


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