Ghost stories

Pro-serial number isn’t anti-gun

Just because Joe Biden does something doesn’t mean it’s wrong. The president’s actions this week to contain machines called “ghost guns” will rile the usual suspects. That is, the people who’d allow that the Constitution gives everybody the right to have any kind of gun they want, wherever they want to carry it, and however they manage to get it.

But most folks understand things like background checks are good ideas. Believe it or not, there is a middle ground, even when it comes to culture issues like gun rights/gun control.

We the People, after careful thought spread out over many years, have pretty much decided that violent felons carrying around guns isn’t a good idea. Others who shouldn’t be able to get firearms include those who have been found incompetent or who have been involuntarily hospitalized for mental health problems, those who’ve been found by a court to be dangerous (read: spouse abusers), and those who are too young to buy them.

But people find loopholes. This is, after all, tax season.

These ghost guns are giant loopholes. They are unregulated and untraceable, and are made from kits. So when a person snaps together the pieces, he has a gun with no serial number. According to reports, the current administration wants to take action before the usual summer spike in gun crimes.

From a CNN report:

“The new rule issued by the Justice Department seeks to rein in a type of weapon that has been seen more and more at crime scenes across the country. Ghost gun kits can be purchased online, and a weapon can be self-manufactured in as little as 30 minutes. Because regulators cannot trace them, ghost guns are appealing to criminals and those with criminal histories, according to officials.

“The new rules would require anyone purchasing a kit to undergo a background check, as is required for other types of firearm purchases. It would also require those selling the kits to mark components with a serial number, so the eventual weapon produced can be traced. And it would mandate firearm dealers add a serial number to already built ghost guns they come across in their businesses.”

All around, this sounds perfectly reasonable. As reasonable as, say, outlawing sawed-off shotguns or requiring extensive licensing and paperwork to own a fully automatic weapon.

Doubtless, some will argue The Slippery Slope of government regulation. We’d argue that there very much is a slippery slope, but it slopes the other way: Reasonable Americans already understand the need for background checks.

If such checks are good enough at the sporting goods store, they should be good enough for online purchases. If ghost guns aren’t reined in, they could spread like kudzu. They are problem enough, apparently, and keep law enforcement from getting to the source(s) of the problem.

“If you can put together an IKEA dresser, you can build a ghost gun,” said a citizen of California named Mia Tretta. She should know. She was shot by one in a school shooting in 2019.

“Unfortunately, it is that easy to get a weapon that has not only changed my life, but has done the same thing to thousands of others. Finalizing this rule is a critical step to making sure no one else has to go through what my family has had to go through.”

There are those who oppose this step by the administration for better reasons than others. A few congressmen have made note that Congress makes the laws; the executive branch just enforces them. And Congress can’t agree on much of anything these days, especially guns.

But the administration makes a better argument: Ghost guns are guns. There are already laws governing guns on the books. Why can’t ghost guns be subject to the same laws that other guns are subject to (serial numbers), and why can’t sellers of those guns be subject to the same laws other sellers are subject to (background checks)?

If you could make a car from a 3D printer, wouldn’t you have to follow the rules of the road just the same?

Nothing is easy when it comes to this issue. There’ll probably be a lawsuit. It might take years before it shakes out. And until then, cops will continue to complain about the number of ghost guns they find at crime scenes. Not to mention all the ones they don’t find, as they make their way out in a getaway car.