Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Joe Biden Channels the Ghostbusters
If you only watch the Democratic Media Complex, then you know that “ghost guns” are a massive problem because anyone can just get any kind of firearm from the interwebs and then go commit any crime and no one can stop them because the gun is, literally, untraceable. In fact, it’s likely invisible to the naked eye and since its likely 3-D printed metal detectors cannot track them either. Who ya gonna call?
That’s right, you have to call the Ghostbusters. The Biden administration started the rule process last year and now is going final with their new interpretation of what is a “gun” to include what is called an 80% lower.
Note the lack of holes for the safety mechanism and trigger group.
What that means is that you purchase, as an example, the lower receiver of an AR-15, but it isn’t fully machined out. It lacks critical openings that allow it to work. The purchaser must then drill out the final bits of the receiver that makes it functional.
Fully functional AR-15 lower receiver as well as serial number on the magazine well. Note the hole for the safety and trigger group.
All of that is based on the legal precedent that we, as individuals, are allowed to make firearms for personal use that are not required to be tracked by serial numbers or registered with any agency. If you choose to transfer that firearm to another person, then it is required to have a serial number and go through the normal process for a firearms transfer.
The Democratic Media Complex claims that ghost guns are a driving force behind the rise in crime, and that is a ludicrous proposition. It is an easy excuse for the reduction in police forces in various D controlled cities, and the lack of enforcement by DAs across the nation allowing criminals to be arrested and be back on the streets almost immediately, sometimes, the police aren’t even arresting them since they won’t be charged.
So, in an attempt to save their election chances this fall, they are going to try every trick in the book to blame anything but their policies for the rise in crime. Ghost guns sound scary, especially as most people have no idea what they actually are, and so make a convenient straw man to attack.
So, what will the new rules entail? The Biden administration has decided that what was previously called an 80% lower will now be considered a firearm, even though it cannot be used as one absent significant work by the owner. This will require the seller to have a Federal Firearms License (FFL) and they will need to be serialized and tracked just like any other firearm. In addition, if you purchase a kit or an 80% lower, the seller will be required to perform a background check on the purchaser.
What is worse is that the new rules are intended to retroactively apply to any existing self-made firearms. How this will be implemented is unclear. They mention that if a person transfers the firearm to a gunsmith or FFL that they would need to add a serial number to it prior to selling it to another person. Since that is already the law, it seems needless to mention that possibility.
So, other than making things are obviously NOT firearms into firearms, these new rules are just a show that won’t really solve the problem that their other policies created. In short, politics as usual.
Published in Guns
fify?
Thanx. I fixed that.
Sure – this’ll fix ghost guns, but what about ghost sandwiches and ghost clothes that people can just make willy-nilly with not a single Federally-mandated label in sight?
…at which point companies will start producing 79% lowers.
It seems, from this new rule, that anything that can be modified into a lower or frame will be a firearm under these new rules. Soon I suspect that they will regulate CNC machines, 3-D metal printers, and the like because they COULD produce a firearm. So, the gov’t will require that each of them have a governor installed on them that prevents them from printing anything that might become a firearm, and since that isn’t really possible, they will just have them auto-dump everything that you do into a national database. After all, if you aren’t doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?
Zip guns have been around forever. 3D printers makes it high-tech now.
But how do you change a box magazine on a zip gun?
The problem with ghost guns is that they can spit out a non-stop stream of blazing 9mm death at fully automatic speeds with every squeeze of the trigger.
I thought that was proton packs. Just don’t cross the streams.
Oh, it’s usually a fairly unsophisticated single shot weapon.
I think there’s a youtube on how to do it with duct tape and coat hangers.
An example:
There is a plan for a 3-D printed .22 rimfire that is entirely plastic called The Liberator. You provide a nail as the firing pin (and the 3-D printer). I have the files someplace, but I forget where.
So, a solid block of aluminum will be classified as a firearm?
Only if it’s fully automatic aluminum.
Pretty much…perhaps they will force aluminum ore to be serialized next.
Drilling those holes in the exact right place isn’t for the faint of heart. I just don’t see your average gang banger doing that when they can buy a stolen gun or steal one themselves and file the serial number off of it.
I would be curious to know, of all the guns seized by police each year that are known to have been used in a crime (not counting the mere possession as a crime itself), how many have no serial number? I would be pretty surprised if it is as high as 5%.
On a related topic, I saw a clip of a press conference from New York City where the mayor is calling semi-automatic pistols “weapons of mass destruction.” So now WMD includes chemical weapons, nuclear weapons, and the type of pistol that nearly every law enforcement officer in the country carries.
It’s fairly high and increasing, but the vast majority of those are firearms with the serial numbers filed off. They conveniently decided that those are now ghost guns as well to inflate the numbers and make their move seem to make more sense.
“They”* have added the guns with defaced serial numbers to the category of “ghost guns,” and now there is an explosion of ghost gun crime, making it an issue for which we must “do something.”
———————————
* No, I don’t know who “they” are, but I wish they’d quit it.
Read on article that says ATF can’t, won’t, explain its numbers.
Well that would really muddy the statistics to make it much more difficult to identify where the problems are. Criminals who get their guns by manufacturing them themselves are probably quite different from criminals who get their guns by stealing them (and then defacing the serial number).
Snooping around I found this article about guns in Chicago. And it says the number of ghost guns are “exploding.”
OK, so there’s a little data. But it doesn’t say what percentage of guns without serial numbers are homemade guns, and what percentage are guns that have had their serial numbers removed. Furthermore, the number of seized guns without serial numbers has increased, but it gives no comparison of those guns to the number of seized guns that do have serial numbers.
Am I being paranoid? It seems to me that if you are trying to make a case for something, you would publish numbers that actually back up your case. Not just some numbers that don’t give you an A-B comparison.
You NEVER let a good crisis go to waste…never. Someone from Chicago said that.
I haven’t paid attention to this particular topic, but I remember reading a few years ago about the common practice of a family member or friend without a criminal record purchasing a gun for someone who wouldn’t pass the background check — and Chicago being reluctant to prosecute such cases because it would involve arresting and charging a lot of wives, girlfriends, sisters, etc.
It wouldn’t surprise me if filed serial numbers are intended to protect the purchaser in such a situation.
I’m no fan of gun laws, but it’s frustrating when new laws are justified by a failure to enforce old laws.
IIRC, there’s a little more to completing an 80% lower than the holes in the side. The compartment housing the trigger mechanism, etc. also has to be milled out, and the opening in the floor of that compartment for the trigger. It can be done with a quality drill press and drill press vice, if you have the correct bits and jigs. There’s also the matter of anodizing. But as @eherring said, it isn’t for the faint of heart.
A few years ago, around the beginning of the “Ghost Gun” fairy tale, California AG (I think it was Becera) held up an AR – something or other, and declared, “this is a ghost gun.” He continued, explaining that it could fire at a rate of (I think it was) 2000 rounds per minute. Pretty impressive for a firearm with a 35 – round magazine! Apparently AG Becera never took thet therr ‘rithmetic.
Straw purchases are a huge issue and rarely prosecuted. Neither are rejected 4473 applications. Those are when a person tries to buy a firearm and the background check flags them as unable to do so. Some likely didn’t know, but lying on the form is a crime and they prosecuted about 10 out of 50,000 in one calendar year.
Yeah, as noted above by @dbroussa , “straw purchases” are not unusual and are rarely prosecuted. If they’re not going to enforce existing laws, then I fail to see the point of enacting new laws (well, except for the publicity, and perhaps the spite of annoying and making life difficult for the normal law abiding American who owns firearms).
Yeah, you would think that when the ATF get a request form from a known felon, they would contact the local police and tell them that Harvey the convicted and released bank robber is trying to buy a gun. It’s almost like the reason for gun control laws isn’t really to stop crime, but are just meant to discourage the law-abiding from owning firearms.