supreme court Offered clear support Tuesday for continuing federal regulation of so-called “ghost guns,” which can be assembled from a kit into a working gun without a background check or a normal serial number.
At issue at oral arguments were whether the devices meet the federal definition of “firearm” and “frame and receiver”, and whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has violated its jurisdiction in regulating and enforcing their sale. Has exceeded authority.
Ghost guns are self-made functional weapons often purchased online, and marketed by some sellers as being easy to assemble.
The Justice Department said more than 19,000 hard-to-trace ghost guns were seized by law enforcement in 2021, a more than tenfold increase in just five years.
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Ghost guns are on display at the San Francisco Police Department headquarters in San Francisco on November 27, 2019. (AP Photo/Haven Daily, File)
It was inspired by recent technological advances, many of which included polymer-based disintegrated firearm components.
Final home assembly generally requires the use of a few readily available tools, including drilling holes and milling or sanding the unfinished frame or receiver, which enables installation of the parts.
US Solicitor General Elizabeth Preloger said the increased sales were unexplained.ghost gunsA “public safety crisis” was created with the “explosion” of crimes committed using them.
Several justices appeared to support most of the Biden administration’s arguments in the 75-minute argument, suggesting that almost all parts meet the general definition of a firearm subject to regulation.
“What’s the purpose of selling a receiver without drilling a hole in it?” Chief Justice John Roberts said, rejecting suggestions that the kits were marketed to weekend gun hobbyists. “I think doing a hole-in-one or two doesn’t get the same reward that you get from working on your car over the weekend. My understanding is that it’s not too difficult for someone to do that.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh – who could be the key deciding vote – expressed concern that someone unaware of the law could unwittingly sell or buy a ghost gun kit.
“For example, what about the seller who is not really aware, doesn’t really know that they are violating the law and have been charged criminally?”
But Kavanaugh also indicated some support for the government’s position, telling the prelogger, “Your statutory interpretation has merit.”
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Stocks and handguns collected during a buyback event in the Wilmington neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, US, on Saturday, March 4, 2023. (Jill Connelly/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The 1968 Gun Control Act was amended in 2022 to regulate the growing market of certain “buy shoot” kits.
The law defines “firearm” as including “any weapon… which is designed to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or which may be readily converted” as well as “such “The frame or receiver of any weapon”.
The administration said it is not seeking to ban the sale or use of these kits, only to require them to comply with the same requirements as other commercial firearms dealers. This includes serial numbers on parts and background checks on buyers.
After a legal challenge from kit sellers and buyers, a federal appeals court late last year struck down the updated rules, but the Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court.
Gun rights groups say the rule is “unconstitutional and outrageous”, arguing that the ghost gun kits include “non-gun items”.
Attorney Peter Patterson said that only Congress can change the law on ghost gun regulations and said that if the regulations were fully implemented, 42 of the 43 unlicensed manufacturers of the kits would be put out of business.
Devices can also be made using 3D printers or from individual parts. It is part of separate legal challenges in lower courts.
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Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States pose for their official portrait in Washington, DC on October 7, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
In oral arguments, the high court grappled with questions about the ease of assembling a “ghost gun” from a kit, and whether judges should even be involved in the case.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said, “I am concerned that … the court will take over what Congress intended the agency to do in this situation.” “I think it cannot be assumed that the agency is overstepping its authority whenever it interprets a statutory term differently than we expect, such as we have as part of this claim here today. It’s up to us to decide what we think a gun is.”
But others in court questioned whether a bunch of unassembled parts actually made them a gun.
“Here’s a blank pad and here’s a pen, okay? Is this a grocery list?” Justice Samuel Alito asked. “If I could show you – I’ve got some eggs, some chopped ham, some chopped peppers and onions on the counter. Is that a Western omelet?”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett then appeared to blunt Alito’s argument, focusing on do-it-yourself kits.
“Would your answer change if you ordered it from HelloFresh, and you got a kit, and it was like turkey chili, but all the ingredients are in the kit?” she asked, referring to the ready-to-cook meal kit delivery service.
Barrett also became skeptical of legal alternatives to the ATF rules proposed by Patterson, an attorney representing gun rights advocates.
“It feels like it’s a little made up,” she said.
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Vince Warner fires an AK-47 with the bump stock installed at Good Guys Gun & Range in Orem, Utah, on February 21, 2018. (George Frey/Getty Images)
Prelogger claimed that the new regulations had led to a dramatic decline in online sales of finished weapons.
ATF rules require that incomplete firearm parts, such as the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun, be treated as if they were a complete firearm. These parts need to be licensed and must have serial numbers.
The rule also requires manufacturers to conduct background checks before selling these parts, as they are required to do for entire commercial firearms.
The Supreme Court had previously allowed the regulation to remain in effect while the lawsuit continued through the courts, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett voting with the court’s three liberal members to form the majority.
Justices have been revisiting the Second Amendment in recent years, after the conservative majority voted in 2022 to make it easier to carry handguns outside the home for protection.
In June, the federal ban on bump stocks, devices that can turn semi-automatic rifles into weapons that can fire hundreds of rounds a minute, was struck down by the high court.
But that same month, judges upheld a federal ban on people subject to certain domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms.
the matter is this Garland vs. Vanderstock (23-852) A decision is expected by the summer of 2025.
