Ghost guns and the limits of gun control

A New York Times news report recently declared an “epidemic” of ghost gun usage, referring to untraceable firearms made with parts bought online or made by 3D printers.

In California, the problem is especially pronounced.

Between 25 to 50% of all the firearms recovered at crime scenes in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego and San Francisco in the past 18 months have been ghost guns, the Times reports.

But the Times also reports that ghost guns are “especially prevalent in coastal blue states with strict firearm laws.” No kidding.

Gun laws only work on people who are willing to obey laws, which violent criminals by definition are not.

Similarly, the more you try to regulate away certain products, the more you push those products into the black market. While the Biden Administration has sought to curtail access to ghost guns, it is definitionally difficult to do so.

“While the rules would create a set of legal roadblocks, law enforcement officials say the extralegal pipeline for parts is sure to adapt and thrive,” the Times reports, noting there is already a “huge surfeit of supplies in circulation, enough to supply dealers who sell pre-assembled guns” for years to come.

The availability of 3D printers likewise render moot any attempt to regulate away access to ghost guns, particularly for highly motivated criminal organizations.

The government can pass more laws, and perhaps they’ll reduce some incidents on the margins, but guns won’t be going away, certainly not with hundreds of millions in circulation, the Second Amendment in place and now the wide availability of ghost guns.

The growing ease of producing one’s own weapons makes it even more important for government to focus less on merely making it less convenient for law-abiding gun owners to own guns and more on addressing the root causes of gun violence.

Better outreach to people suffering from mental health issues, improving socio-economic conditions in our most impoverished communities, ensuring weapons are kept out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them and reducing illegal activity that promotes violence are all better uses of the government’s time if meaningful change is actually desired.