Ghost guns may make a comeback, despite a Supreme Court ruling : NPR

The “Ghost Guns” seized in the federal actions to apply the law are displayed at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Field Office in Glendale, California, in April 2022.

Robyn Beck / AFP via Getty Images

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Robyn Beck / AFP via Getty Images

The legal battle on “Ghost Guns” is far from over, even after the The Supreme Court has confirmed a regulation of the Biden era Requiring checks of history and standard numbers for certain construction gun kits.

These kits, which allow buyers to bring together firearms from parts, have been the subject of a meticulous examination of the police. Because the kits were initially sold without standard numbers or checks of the history, the authorities could often not retrace their weapons – their winning the nickname “Ghost Guns”.

“The people who make them, often, and put them in the street put them in the hands of people who are prohibited, putting them in the hands of condemned criminals,” said Bill Brooks, who chairs the Firearms Committee of the International Police Association. “As evidenced by the fact that Many of them now appear in crime scenes. “”

The Biden administration decided to fill this gap in 2022 with a rule requiring that certain firearms kits be treated as full firearms – and sold with standard numbers and history checks. This rule was challenged in a federal case known as Bondi c. VanderstokBut in March, the Supreme Court allowed him to stand up.

“It was good that the court confirmed the ATF regulations,” said Brooks.

However, firearms groups are seeing an opening. The High Court’s decision has mainly visited administrative law issues and left the possibility of future challenges, depending on the kit conceptions.

In addition, the Trump administration ordered at the alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives (ATF) office to review all the regulations on firearms in the Biden era, including the ghost firearies rule. Executive orderR, signed in February, calls for the examination of regulations “which claim to promote security but which may have empowering the rights of the second amendment to laws respectful of laws”.

“We have urged the administration to act as quickly as possible,” said Alan Gottlieb, executive vice-president of the second amendment Foundation. “However, there are a lot on their plate, and I don’t know how speed will happen. But we would like as soon as possible.”

Not all activists in firearms are ready to wait. Cody Wilson, known for his 3D -printed firearm plea, now markets a product called the G80 through his company, Defense Distributed. Although prudent not to label it a pistol, Wilson describes it as a kit that “you can finally build in a 9 mm pistol, say.”

Wilson worries that the Trump administration will be put on the side of the police and will maintain restrictions on the kit pistols. He therefore filed a request in the Vanderstok Affair, which was sent to the Federal Court in Texas, requesting a preliminary injunction to prevent the government from enforcing the ATF ghost pistol rule.

Wilson says he sees an obligation to press the question for constitutional reasons.

“I really want there to be a law before the end of this administration,” he said, “that the second amendment includes the right to build weapons and not just to keep them.”

Defenders of firearms control claim that this is part of an extreme strategy to fully dismantle the regulations on firearms.

“There are people who want there to be no laws on firearms, and they see that is the avenue to do so,” said David Pucino, legal director and deputy chief of the Giffords Law Center to prevent armed violence.

“If they can sell a gun without it counting like a firearm, there are no firearm laws that apply at all,” he said. “This is the final goal here.”

For the moment, the two parties are watching closely to see how the Trump’s Ministry of Justice vigorously defends the rule of the Biden era. The DoJ opposed a preliminary injunction of Wilson, but he recently deposited with the Federal Court a copy of a letter which she sent to the lawyer of Defense Distributed in May, claiming that it would not apply the rule against a list of products from the Company, and added that it would “provide an accelerated classification” for the “G80” kit.

Pucino, in Giffords Law, calls the “really disturbing” letter – a sign that the Trump administration can become more indulgent towards kits, and less likely to classify them as regulated firearms.