Biden Finally Cracks Down on Untraceable ‘Ghost Guns’

The Biden administration is cracking down on untraceable gun kits that can be assembled at home.

The Biden administration is cracking down on untraceable gun kits that may be assembled at dwelling.
Image: Tetra Images (Getty Images)

In an effort to scale back gun violence, President Joe Biden banned the manufacturing of unserialized, untraceable gun kits which can be purchased with out the necessity for a background examine and later assembled at dwelling.

These so-called “ghost guns” have been recovered at a number of crime scenes lately. There have been roughly 20,000 suspected ghost weapons reported to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in 2021, according to a statement by The White House. But not like common weapons, ghost weapons don’t have a serial quantity etched on them, making it practically not possible to hint the weapon again to its proprietor.

“Ghost guns can be purchased on the internet and assembled at a kitchen table,” Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned throughout a press convention on Monday. “They can be bought without a background check by people who otherwise would be legally prohibited from gun ownership, domestic abusers, gun traffickers, individuals convicted of violent crimes, and even young children.”

The ban is focusing on “buy build shoot” kits which can be purchased on-line, or by a retailer, and later assembled right into a firearm inside lower than half-hour. The ban rule confirms that these are in truth thought-about to be firearms underneath the Gun Control Act, due to this fact the producers of the gun kits should get hold of a license to promote them, and embody serial numbers on the ghost gun’s body or receiver. Meanwhile, these promoting the ghost weapons at the moment are required to conduct a background examine on their prospects. The Department of Justice can be searching for to serialize ghost weapons which can be already in circulation earlier than being offered to a different buyer.

“If somebody sells the ghost gun to a federally licensed dealer, for example a pawn shop, that dealer must make the firearm and mark it with a serial number before reselling it,” Biden mentioned through the press convention. “All of a sudden, it’s no longer ghost. It has a return address that’s going to help us reduce crime and get more criminals off the streets.” Biden additionally known as on Congress to cross common background checks, which might require virtually all firearms transactions to be recorded and undergo the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

The United States has seen a current spike in gun violence associated incidents. In 2020, extra Americans died of gun-related accidents than in some other 12 months on report, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Mass shootings additionally elevated throughout the identical 12 months, with 343 mass shootings, 217 folks killed and 1,498 folks injured throughout a 15 month interval between April 2020 and July 2021, according to research published in JAMA network. There have been 2.2 million firearms offered in January 2021, according to Small Arms Analytics.

The Biden Administration has been underneath strain to crackdown on gun violence. During an interview with Politico, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy known as for “more urgency from the administration as the gun violence epidemic gets worse by the day.”

One factor that has been lacking from Biden’s plan to deal with the rise in crime is having somebody main the ATF. On Monday, Biden additionally nominated former federal prosecutor Steve Dettelbach to serve as the company’s new director. Biden needed to withdraw his first ATF nominee David Chipman, a gun management advocate, after dealing with opposition from Republicans and a few average Democrats.

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