(Bloomberg) -- Luigi Mangione, the man arrested in the fatal Dec. 4 shooting of Brian Thompson, chief executive officer of UnitedHealth Group Inc., was carrying a gun and silencer that police said appeared to have been assembled from parts created mostly with a 3D printer. The discovery renewed scrutiny of so-called ghost guns. US authorities have charted a dramatic rise over the last decade in the criminal use of this class of weapon, which is the subject of a case before the Supreme Court.
What are ghost guns?
They’re unregistered guns typically assembled from a kit, or 3D-printed based on instructions purchased on the internet or at a gun show. They come unfinished and in pieces, but once they’re assembled — a process that can take as little as 20 minutes — ghost guns operate exactly like regular guns. Because they lack the serial numbers that must be stamped on weapons sold already assembled, it’s impossible to find out where they originated.
How big of a problem are ghost guns?
US law enforcement officials recovered more than 70,000 firearms that they suspect were privately made between 2016 and 2022, with the vast majority coming in 2021 and 2022, according to the Justice Department. An estimated 2,500 ghost guns were linked to criminal activity from 2010 to April 2020, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy organization. (The group, which advocates for universal background checks and gun-safety measures, is backed by Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent company Bloomberg LP.)
By all accounts, ghost guns represent only a fraction of the estimated 393 million guns owned in the US or of the 13.5 million guns that were manufactured legally in 2022. But gun-safety advocates say that stopping ghost gun sales is an issue of growing urgency. Of the online sellers of ghost guns operating in 2020, Everytown estimated that almost 70% emerged after 2014.
How are ghost guns regulated?
On April 11, 2022, President Joe Biden announced new federal rules that expanded the definition of a firearm to include the unfinished components of one, such as the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun. That brought the purchasing process for kits in line with the regulations for purchasing traditional guns, meaning sellers must run background checks on buyers and include serial numbers on kits. The rules took effect in August 2022, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issued guidance on enforcement in December of that year.
How have ghost gun regulations been challenged?
In June 2023, a federal judge in Texas, ruling in a case brought by a collection of manufacturers, dealers, individuals and gun-rights groups, struck down the regulation. A kit of weapon parts, he ruled, doesn’t constitute a firearm under the Gun Control Act of 1968. The Biden administration appealed that decision to the Supreme Court. The high court, in an emergency order in August 2023, said the federal government can continue enforcing the regulation for now. In October 2024, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case, with a decision expected next summer.
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