Ghost Guns: Firearm Kits Bought Online Fuel Epidemic of Violence

"Ghost guns — untraceable firearms without serial numbers, assembled from components bought online — are increasingly becoming the lethal weapon of easy access for those legally barred from buying or owning guns around the country. The criminal underground has long relied on stolen weapons with sanded-off serial numbers, but ghost guns represent a digital-age upgrade, and they are especially prevalent in coastal blue states with strict firearm laws.

"Nowhere is that truer than in California, where their proliferation has reached epidemic proportions, according to local and federal law enforcement officials in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego and San Francisco. Over the past 18 months, officials said, ghost guns accounted for 25% to 50% of firearms recovered at crime scenes. The vast majority of suspects caught with them were legally prohibited from having guns....

"Ghost guns, and the niche industry that produces them, have flourished because of a loophole in federal regulation: The parts used to build 'privately made firearms' are classified as components, not actual guns, which means that online buyers are not required to undergo background checks or register the weapons. That makes them a powerful magnet for those banned from gun ownership, including felons, domestic abusers subject to orders of protection, the mentally ill and children, like the teenager who brought his gun into Max Mendoza’s apartment, according to police.

"Closing that loophole is the focus of new regulations ordered by President Joe Biden. The rules would essentially treat ghost guns as traditional firearms — requiring core components to be engraved with serial numbers, imposing background checks and requiring online purchasers to pick up their orders at federally licensed gun shops."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/14/us/ghost-guns-homemade-firearms.html

The ghost gun loophole should be closed. Gun kits should be subject to the same restrictions as guns. It's good to hear that Biden is taking action.

 

Thats a lot of words just to say California gun laws don't work.

 

The ghost gun 'loophole' can only be closed for law abiding citizens. Theres no law that will prevent machined steel parts from being sold, not online and not otherwise. And thats what we're talking about here- just steel parts. The only thing that could be done is to make it illegal to sell finished parts and/or call them gun parts. That will not deter anyone determined enough to get a gun that they'll go outside the law. It will deter only those who are determined to respect the law, and those people commit very little crime.
For example, an '80% reciever' is a receiver that still has 20% of the work needs done to it. Currently, thats the cutoff for what the ATF considers a 'firearm.' A 0% receiver would be a receiver sized solid chunk of steel. If 80% is too much, how much do you think would be reasonable? Should a rectangular chunk of steel with a 21mm whole drilled through it be illegal? That would prolly be a 10% receiver.

 

So criminals will just buy them on the black market the way they do with regular guns?

 

Any idea what a "Ghost Gun" ( today's bodice-ripping version of the old "Saturday Night Special") costs to assemble? Who knew criminals pay MSRP and above for their weapons?

 

Another load of fear mongering garbage. Name any crime committed with one. Only hobbyists buy these and they are illegal to sell.

 

Or their state legislators will sell them to them.

 

Once again you have demonstrated, all you understand about guns is what the anti-gunners feed you.

 

NYT = MSM = FAKE NEWS

 

This article is misleading and requires profound levels of ignorance and gullibility to accept.

A "loophole" would be circumventing an existing law. There is no law against buying a chunk of metal.

If a gun is recovered at the crime scene, it is next to a dead/injured criminal. Can you name one crime solved using serial numbers?

3D printers can make "parts" as well.

Bottom line, every criminal that wants a gun, has one. Gun laws only provide killers with easy victims.

Heres a -80% lower!

 

Ghost guns is just a spooky term for guns you assemble out of components.

If it's a rifle or a pistol the barrel is manufactured and serial numbered. That's required by law.

 

I think all guns should be as easily accessible as ghost guns.

 

No barrel is required to be serial numbered. The only part required to be serial numbered is the receiver. The receiver is poorly defined by law as well.

 

This is the problem the people who make laws about this don't have the first clue about what they're talking about.

 

The "ghost guns" you are targeting are hardly relevant to crime. First- almost all are rifles built on the AR platform, but almost all crime using guns will be using handguns.
Turning parts into a rifle also requires machining the lower receiver. While this is usually done from a casting casting, it could be done from a billet block of aluminum as well. The castings lack any machining for the trigger and hammer mechanisms. All you save is some external machining, and if you are already milling such a part, you could do that as well. Then, when you consider that more people are beaten to death each year with fist and feet than are killed by all rifle of all kinds put together. the irrelevance seems quite clear.

The cause of gun violence is the same as the cause of all violence- People. Weapons are just a tool some use to express that. Without guns, they turn to the next thing on the list, which includes damn near everything. The weapon that killed 6 at the Wakesha parade was an SUV.

What should be feared about guns is the government having them, and the public not having them. Power corrupts, they will do it if they can. This is historically consistent.
I simply ask- "If you do not intend to do something that might cause me to need this gun- why do you want to take it away from me?"

Knowing where every gun is and who has it is tantamount to controlling all the people's ability to defend themselves. It's what a general would do when planning an attack on some enemy's position.
Think on that. This is a kind of balance. Long ago, Thomas Jefferson said: "When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."

Gun crime must never be defined as a good citizen owning arms- but as a bad citizen using arms to facilitate his crime. No gun owner with character will object to that.
The second amendment says "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." But of course, it has been infringed upon. To "infringe" is to interfere is any way.

 

IDK about all that, but check out this really sweet deck design!!

 

You can make rifled barrels yourself real easy now. With 3d printed shims, a big fish tank, and a car battery. They cannae stop the signal laddie!

 

The honey crimes do people think are committed with 3D printed guns?

I've never heard of this. I know it was some people work panicking about 3D printed guns but they panic about AR-15s too and those don't represent the large section of gun crime in fact I think more people are killed with hands and feet than with all rifles combined.

 

Probably not that many in the US. Homemades are popular with Aussie biker gangs though.

Yeah this is a real thing. You can print 100% of what you need now, though it won't be overly sturdy. Particularly if you have a CNC mill though, you're pretty much good to go.
https://www.ammoland.com/2019/07/how-to-make-cheap-rifled-barrels/#axzz7EJ1PhJ1M
ECM is what the process is called. Pretty cool really.

 

But in all reality zip guns have been a thing for like 60 years at least I'll have to check out the link.

 

I'm not talking about zip guns in OZ. I'm talking about functional tech 9 style submachine guns. They've got a real cottage industry down there.
Been going on for most of a decade or more.

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/04/04/australian-motorcycle-gang-diy-firearms-surface/
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/n...s/news-story/5fdb4a462ef3c50afc70522879813fe7
https://reason.com/2019/11/11/biker...-are-part-of-a-predictable-prohibition-story/
https://www.afp.gov.au/news-media/m...uad-seizes-more-firearms-cash-and-drugs-omcgs
^last link is just a few days ago. Homemade gun and suppressor amongst the haul.

 

You can make a machine gun out of just about any gun some of them you only need to file one component for a little bit.

Good morning if it's a semi automatic you can bump fire it.

 

Yeah but I'm talking about a gun made at home, that's not a zip gun, that shoots standard cartridges, has a fire control group, takes standard mags etc, that's made to fire in full auto or semi by design not by "hey look I can file down the disconnector and make a dangerous slam fire weapon"

I'm talking about aimed fully automatic fire by design, not using your belt loops with an AK

 

What difference does it make?

 

I know very little about firearms but wouldn't this be related to the 3D printed gun issue. 3D printers are becoming very affordable and if you can print a firearm by downloading the blueprint wouldn't this be a bigger problem?

This video is 2 years old but it give a nice intro into the issue and asks some great questions regarding free speech etc... I am not sure how much the technology has advanced for printed guns in the last 2 years but I am going to guess this will be a huge issue in the future. When we have the first case of a kid 3D printing a gun and shooting up a school everyone is going to be talking about it.