Biden White House to Release Rule on Ghost Guns as Soon as Monday - Report

Ghost guns are firearms sold online as D.I.Y. kits that can be assembled without a license or a background check. About 80% of the firearms are complete when the consumer receives it, leaving them to assemble the remaining 20%. The packages are also known for being cheap to assemble, with an AR-15 only costing buyers about $345.

The Biden administration is expected to roll out a long-awaited rule on ghost guns - unregulated and untraceable firearms built from kits - as soon as Monday, according to the Associated Press.

Under US federal law, firearms are required to be labeled with serial numbers by every manufacturer, importer, or “anyone making a firearm."

The announcement for the rule on ghost guns has not yet been made available, but the rule is expected to change the current definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts like the frame of a handgun or the receiver, as well as require firearm dealers to run background checks before selling the D.I.Y. kits.

Biden’s “ghost gun rule” comes at a crucial time, as an increase in shootings is expected this summer after an ominous spring, which saw a string of shootings in America occur in a single weekend last month and left a total of eight people dead and at least 60 injured. That weekend of bloodshed made up some of the total 129 mass shootings that have taken place across the US in 2022 to date.

On February 28, a little over a month before a mass shooting in downtown Sacramento that killed six people, David Mora, 39, killed his three daughters, a chaperone and himself during a supervised visitation at a church. Mora used an unregistered ghost gun in the shooting despite his restraining order, which prohibited him from possessing one.

While ghost guns have existed for decades, the market saw its growth begin to climb starting in 2009. The issues surrounding ghost guns increasing stole nationwide headlines after a single shooter went on a killing spree in 2013 at the Santa Monica College campus and its surrounding area. Six people, including the gunman were killed during the shooting.

The Santa Monica shooter was deemed ineligible in 2011 by the California Department of Justice to purchase a firearm, so he built his own at home. Sales of ghost gun parts are unregulated, except for the lower receiver. Websites that sell ghost gun kits and parts market them as “80-pecent receivers” which do not require a background check, as they are only 80% complete, but that doesn’t necessarily mean putting them together is difficult.

“Within an hour or two, you should be breaking it in at the range,” boasts one online merchant. Another site said that the jigs which are included in the ghost gun kits could make it easy enough for anyone to assemble a gun in under 15 minutes.

Between 2016 and 2020, the Justice Department reported that nearly 24,000 ghost guns were found by law enforcement at crime scenes, and the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reported that law enforcement recovered about 10,000 ghost guns in 2019.

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 250 ghost guns were recovered by authorities in 2020, compared to 99 that were found the year prior. And in Baltimore, Maryland, 126 ghost guns were found compared to just 29 from the year before. Meanwhile in California, a state that has been ramping up its gun restrictions, authorities said that in 2019, nearly a third of the firearms they recovered were homemade, unserialized, and untraceable.

In 2022 alone, 131 ghost guns were recovered in New York City by the NYPD, marking a 351% increase in the city from the 29 ghost guns that were recovered by police in 2021. Former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in 2021 that ghost guns are “a significant public safety threat in a way that they weren’t even two years ago.”

In October 2021, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation in order to crack down on the untraceable firearms, which would make it illegal to possess an unfinished gun frame or receiver by anyone other than a licensed gunsmith or dealer.

I'm working for action from ATF to rein in ghost guns.

Ghost guns are bought and sold in kits. They can be bought online. They come without background checks or serial numbers.

ATF must act on its proposed rule now to close this dangerous gun-law loophole.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) April 10, 2022

For nearly a year, Biden’s rule on ghost guns has been making its way through the federal regulation process, with gun safety groups and Democrats in Congress urging the Justice Department for months to finally wrap it up.