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The United States Supreme Court confirmed on Wednesday the regulation of the Biden administration of the so-called “ghost guns”, with a vote of 7-2.
Judge Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion, accompanied by the president of Justice John Roberts, as well as Judges Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dismit.
In question it was whether the devices complied with the federal definition of a “firearm” and “frame and receiver”, and if the office of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives (ATF) exceeded its authority to regulate and enforce its sale.
Ghost weapons are DIY functional weapons that are often bought online, and marketed by some vendors as easy to gather. The Department of Justice said more than 19,000 difficult to do. Ghost guns They were seized by the police in 2021, an increase of more than ten times in just five years.
That was partly driven by recent technological advances, many that contain components of firearms without assembly based on polymers.
The final home assembly generally requires the use of some easily available tools, including drilling holes and grinding or sanding the unfinished frame or receiver, which allow the installation of parts. GUN control law of 1968 was reviewed in 2022 to regulate the growing market of certain “purchase outbreak” kits.
The majority of the seven positions of justice discovered that the arms control law “allows ATF to regulate … some kits of pieces of weapons and unaffected frames or receptors.”
The Kings County District Prosecutor, Eric González, has a 3D -printed ghost pistol during a arms repurchase event throughout the state held by the New York State Attorney’s Office, in the New York Brooklyn district on April 29, 2023. (Yuki Iwamura/AFP through Getty Images)
The law defines a “firearm” to include “any weapon … that is designed or can easily become to expel a projectile for the action of an explosive”, as well as “the frame or the receiver of said weapon.”
“Congress could have authorized ATF to regulate any part of a firearm or any easily convertible object in,” Thomas wrote in his dissent. “But, he did not. I would adhere to the words that Congress promulgated. Using its novel methodology of ‘Substantive of Artifacts’, most draws a different course that invites unpredictable consequences and does not offer a limiting principle.”
The Administration said it was not trying to prohibit the sale or use of these kits, simply demanding that they meet the same requirements as other commercial firearms dealers. Which includes serial numbers in the pieces and background verification In buyers.
Ghost Guns are exhibited at the headquarters of the San Francisco Police Department in San Francisco on November 27, 2019. (AP Photo/Haven Daley, Archive)
A Federal Court of Appeals had noted the updated rules, after a legal challenge of the sellers and kits buyers, but the Department of Justice appealed before the Supreme Court.
Weapon rights groups say that the rule is “unconstitutional and abusive”, arguing that ghost gun kits consist of “objects that are not from Fira.”
Devices can also be made of 3D printers or individual parts. That is part of separate legal challenges in the lower courts.
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The ATF rule requires unfinished parts of a firearm, such as the framework of a gun or the receiver of a long gun, to be treated as a complete firearm. These pieces must have a license and must have serial numbers.
The rule also requires that manufacturers execute background verifications before selling these parts, as they should do so for complete commercial firearms.
The judges have been reviewing The second amendment In recent years, after the conservative majority in 2022 facilitated the burden of weapons outside the home for protection.
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Ghost weapons are seen on display in the offices of the New York Attorney General Letitia James in the center of Manhattan. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/Ny Daily News Diario Archive through Getty Images)
In June, the Superior Court ran over a federal prohibition of the stocks of the shares, which can convert the semi -automatic rifles into arms that can shoot hundreds of rounds per minute.
But that same month, the judges confirmed a federal prohibition of possession of firearms for persons subject to certain orders for the restriction of domestic violence.
The case is Garland v. Vanderstok (23-852).
