#5 What are ghost guns?

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What are Ghost Guns?

The term ‘ghost guns’ has multiple working uses, but the most basic definition for ‘ghost guns’ is that they are unlicensed firearms that don’t feature serial numbers. These two features make them effectively untraceable, arguably making them better for criminals who want to elude capture.

Ghost guns also may be manufactured out of non-metal materials like hard plastics, unlike licensed guns. In the U.S., legal guns must be made of detectable metal so that they can be seen by metal detectors.

There are two ways that ghost guns are typically produced:

1. ‘Gun kits’ that contain full sets of gun parts that need to be assembled
   

2. 3-D printed guns that are printed from a 3-D gun schematic
   

   

Ghost gun kits & efforts to regulate them

Gun kits are purchasable kits that contain all or most of the parts needed to build a gun. They typically come with instructions and require basic machinic equipment and skills to put together. These guns, once assembled, are referred to by firearms aficionados as kit guns.

This week, the Supreme Court moved to reverse a lower court decision blocking the Biden administration's efforts to regulate “ghost gun kits”. Last year, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) broadened its definition of what a "firearm" is to include ghost guns in response to what an administration official called "the urgent public safety and law enforcement crisis posed by the exponential rise of untraceable firearms."

The change did not ban "ghost guns" but instead mandated that manufacturers and sellers of ghost guns obtain licenses, include serial numbers on ghost guns, and conduct background checks on the people who are trying to buy them.

3D printed guns & efforts to promulgate them

To produce a 3D printed gun, you need a 3D printer and a 3D gun schematic. As 3D printers became more popular and accessible to consumers over the last decade-and-a-half, the idea of 3D printing guns spread online.

The first well-known 3D gun schematic was called The Liberator. It was created and popularized by crypto-anarchist activist Cody Wilson via his non-profit group Defense Distributed in 2013.

Wikipedia defines Defense Distributed as "an online, open-source hardware and software organization that develops digital schematics of firearms in CAD files, or "wiki weapons", that may be downloaded from the Internet and used in 3D printing or CNC milling applications."

Defense Distributed, which also shared the first schematic for an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, has been involved in a decade-long legal battle with the State Department, several state attorney generals, and various other litigants since releasing The Liberator online in 2013.

Here is a brief summary:

• 2013: Shortly after they were posted online, the State Department moved to have The Liberator schematics removed from the Internet.

• 2015: Defense Distributed sued the government, claiming that the State Department’s actions violated its 1st, 2nd, and 5th Amendment rights.

• July 2018: The State Department reached a settlement with Defense Distributed. In response, the group re-released its archive of gun schematics online on its DEFCAD website.

• August 2018: A judge blocked the settlement and over a dozen state attorney generals sued to block the settlement on the grounds that making the 3D printed gun schematics widely available would endanger the public.

• 2021: A higher court vacated the lower court decision blocking the settlement. In response, Defense Distributed released its archive once again on DEFCAD.

These and related legal battles have brought unprecedented issues before U.S. courts. 3D gun advocates argue that 3D gun schematics are not only protected by the 2nd Amendment, but that they also constitute protected speech.

Ghost gun trafficking and the law enforcement response

The obvious downside of ghost guns is that their widespread availability makes it easier for guns to get into the hands of minors, criminals, and people who wouldn’t pass a background check. Police and prosecutors in the U.S. and Canada have made dozens of arrests against ghost gun traffickers who sell kit guns that they bought online and manufactured themselves.

Last December, a six-month investigation by the New York Attorney General's Organized Crime Task Force charged three men with leading an interstate ghost gun trafficking operation. Police recovered 57 illegal firearms in the investigation in addition to silencers, rapid-fire modification devices, and the tools needed to build or modify the guns.

Ghost guns, both in the form of gun kits and 3D printing schematics, are not going away any time soon. The federal government has continued to litigate the issue, and it is a near certainty that the thorny legal issues relating to the production of ghost guns will continue to occupy the attention of U.S. courts, government officials, and law enforcement in the years to come.

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Dan