Top court to decide fate of Biden’s rules on ghost guns
WASHINGTON − The Supreme Court will decide if the Biden administration can regulate “ghost guns” by requiring manufacturers of the untraceable weapon kits to conduct background checks on customers and mark their products with serial numbers.
The court on Monday agreed to hear the administration’s appeal of a lower court’s rejection of the regulation.
That move follows the high court’s decision last August to allow the rule to remain in effect while it’s being challenged. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh wanted to keep the law on hold.
It’s the first gun control case added to the Supreme Court’s docket for its next term, and it will come after the justices decide, before adjourning for the summer, whether domestic abusers can be banned from owning guns and whether bump stocks are illegal.
Ghost gun kits allow people to purchase parts that can be built into a weapon without the usual regulations that come with an assembled gun. President Joe Biden in 2022 required companies selling the do-it-yourself kits to adhere to the same rules as other gunmakers, such as keeping records that help police trace the weapons.
“These guns are weapons of choice for many criminals,” Biden said. “We are going to do everything we can to deprive them of that choice and, when we find them, put them in jail for a long, long time.”
A panel of three judges appointed by former President Donald Trump to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in November that the administration was trying to rewrite gun control laws.
“Only Congress may make the deliberate and reasoned decision to enact new or modified legislation regarding firearms,” the panel said in a decision written by U.S. Circuit Judge Kurt Engelhardt.
The Biden administration told the Supreme Court its regulation was consistent with the “plain meaning” of existing laws.
The 5th Circuit’s interpretation, the Justice Department said, would make it “trivially easy” to circumvent the law. That would lead to a “flood of untraceable ghost guns,” posing a grave threat to public safety and thwarting law enforcement efforts to solve crimes, according to the department.
The law’s definition of “firearm” includes “any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive,” as well as “the frame or receiver of any such weapon.”
Those suing − gun owners, advocacy groups and companies that make or distribute the products – argued that the definition has long been interpreted to describe “actual” or “finished” frames and receivers.
Gun control advocates say the kits are a dangerous loophole and point out that police frequently find the weapons at crime scenes.
Nearly 14,000 suspected ghost guns were recovered by law enforcement and reported to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in just five months last year, according to the Justice Department.
Polymer80, one of the manufacturers challenging the regulation, is responsible for more than 80% of ghost guns recovered at crime scenes in recent years, the department said.