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Ghost Guns Still A Threat Despite Falling Numbers At Crime Scenes

Crime and Justice News

Toward the end of 2024, federal law enforcement officials celebrated a banner year in their fight against homemade, untraceable “ghost guns.”  In many cities, the number of ghost guns recovered at crime scenes was falling. The Supreme Court seemed poised to uphold a de facto federal ban on the kits used to assemble the weapons. And Polymer80, once the largest manufacturer of those kits, was forced to shut down, the Trace reports. Then, in December, a 26-year-old allegedly used a 3D-printed ghost gun to kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan street. The assassination jolted the public. While it didn’t necessarily indicate that untraceable weapons were becoming more prevalent, it did raise questions about the state of the ghost guns market. Was Polymer80’s closure a sign that the market was shriveling up — or was it, growing? Law enforcement officials, small arms researchers, and ghost gun manufacturers describe the law enforcement gains against ghost guns as tenuous at best, especially in light of the Trump administration’s aversion to new regulations. Ghost gun technology, they warned, is only getting more sophisticated — and as a result, the weapons are becoming more appealing to criminals.


In the vast majority of the U.S, it is perfectly legal to own ghost guns, but not to sell them. Companies like Polymer80 have sidestepped this prohibition by selling kits containing all the components necessary to build an unserialized firearm: barrels, triggers, unfinished frames also known as “80 percent” receivers, and all the requisite pins and screws. Since the kits were initially not considered firearms, customers could buy them without a background check, and then assemble their ghost guns at home. Between 2017 and 2023, police recovered more than 92,000 ghost guns — the vast majority of which were built from kits, according to new data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Children bought the kits and shot themselves by accident. Mass shooters used them to kill office workers and classmates. The violence prompted the Biden administration to crack down. In 2022, ATF issued a rule effectively reinterpreting the federal legal definition of the word “firearm” to include most ghost gun kits. To sell the kits, retailers would need to apply for a federal firearms license, serialize the products, and conduct background checks for every sale. The ATF’s data shows that in 2023, the number of ghost guns recovered annually by police increased by less than 1 percent, the smallest jump over that seven-year span. In the world of 3D-printed guns, the ATF’s rule change hardly made a splash. Unlike ghost gun kits, which can be regulated at their point of sale, 3D-printed firearms are often entirely home-built using parts sourced from hardware stores and plastic filament of the sort used in Legos. The printers used to build the guns have come down in price in recent years and can now be bought on Amazon for as little as $200. 


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A daily report co-sponsored by Arizona State University, Criminal Justice Journalists, and the National Criminal Justice Association

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