Supreme Courtroom Reinstates Regulation of Ghost Weapons, Firearms With out Serial Numbers
Supreme Courtroom Reinstates Regulation of Ghost Weapons, Firearms With out Serial Numbers
Ghost weapons” are displayed on the headquarters of the San Francisco Police Division in San Francisco, Nov. 27, 2019. (AP Picture/Haven Daley, File)
By Mark Sherman
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with the courtroom’s three liberal members to kind the bulk. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas would have stored the regulation on maintain in the course of the appeals course of. Neither aspect offered an evidence.
The Justice Division had advised the courtroom that native regulation enforcement companies seized greater than 19,000 ghost weapons at crime scenes in 2021, a greater than tenfold enhance in simply 5 years.
The brand new rule was issued final yr and altered the definition of a firearm below federal regulation to incorporate unfinished components, just like the body of a handgun or the receiver of a protracted gun, to allow them to be tracked extra simply. These components have to be licensed and embody serial numbers. Producers should additionally run background checks earlier than a sale — as they do with different commercially made firearms. The requirement applies no matter how the firearm was made, that means it contains ghost weapons produced from particular person components or kits or by 3D printers.
The rule doesn’t prohibit folks from buying a package or any sort of firearm.
U.S. District Decide Reed O’Connor, in Fort Value, Texas, struck down the rule in late June, concluding that it exceeded the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ authority. O’Connor wrote that the definition of a firearm in federal regulation doesn’t cowl all of the components of a gun. Congress might change the regulation, he wrote.
“We’re deeply disillusioned that the Courtroom pressed pause on our defeat of ATF’s rule successfully redefining ‘firearm’ and ‘body or receiver’ below federal regulation,” Cody J. Wisniewski, normal counsel of the Firearms Coverage Coalition Motion Basis, stated in an announcement. “No matter at present’s resolution, we’re nonetheless assured that we’ll but once more defeat ATF and its illegal rule on the Fifth Circuit when that Courtroom has the chance to assessment the total deserves of our case.”
The Giffords Regulation Middle to Stop Gun Violence, which has lengthy supported regulation of ghost weapons, praised the Supreme Courtroom’s motion. “The challenged rule merely requires that ghost gun kits are regulated just like the weapons that they’re. It can save lives,” David Pucino, the group’s deputy chief counsel, stated in an announcement.
