Four cities have sued the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms over the legal sales of so-called ghost gun kits. The federal lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York by the cities of Chicago, Syracuse, San Jose, and Columbia, South Carolina…along with Michael Bloomberg’s gun control operation, Everytown for Gun Safety.
The cities don’t like the fact that 80% kits can be freely sold and assembled by anyone without going through an FFL for a NICS background check.
From whtc.com:
So-called “ghost gun” or “80% gun” kits are self-assembled from parts purchased online or at gun shows. The parts that are assembled are not classified as a firearm by the ATF. For that reason they can be legally sold with no background checks and without serial numbers to identify the finished product.
The lawsuit argues the ATF and the Department of Justice “refuse to apply the clear terms of the Gun Control Act,” which the suit says defines regulated firearms as not only working weapons “but also their core building blocks – frames for pistols, and receivers for long guns.”
The ATF says on its website that receivers in which the fire-control cavities are solid “have not reached the ‘stage of manufacture’ which would result in the classification of a firearm.”
Yes, but Chicago’s Mayor, Lori Lightfoot is forever looking for others to blame for her city’s horrendous and escalating violence problem. Never mind that you can probably count on one hand the number of “ghost guns” have have been found in the hands of criminals in the Windy City.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, whose city has been beset by gun violence, demanded the ATF close the ghost gun loophole and regulate the sale of gun parts that are marketed to easily be used to build guns.
“Individuals with dangerous histories shouldn’t be able to order lethal weapons on the internet with a few quick clicks,” Lightfoot said.
There’s only one problem, your honor. You can’t stop the signal. It’s perfectly legal for Americans to build their own guns and they’ll find a way to do that no matter what you do. Trying to regulate 80% kits won’t make the slightest dent in crime.
You also get a side of Swedish meatballs with your “ghost gun”… pic.twitter.com/Rb76kz9ipM
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) August 26, 2020
Oh and, by the way, have you see what all the cool kids are doing with 3D printers these days?
The continued rapid advancement of tools and technology widely available to the public meant it was getting to the point where even rudimentary “chunks of metal” can be turned into firearms, [former ATF technical expert Rick] Vasquez said.
“How do you regulate that? The ATF can’t do it. This situation is uncontrollable because of technology, and I’m not sure what anyone can do about it.”
Everytown for gun safety knows that 80% kits aren’t used in crimes or mass shooting for that matter. Their real fear is that when they make guns illegal people will still be building them on their own.
Which Americans have been doing before we were the independation nation of America.
Bleep em! MidwayUSA has lots of them in stock.
https://www.midwayusa.com/s?userSearchQuery=Polymer80+&userItemsPerPage=24
I just bought a long slide G19 to celibate back to school.
“celibate back to school”?
I guess nobody will be Bleeping with you. 😀
Methinks he left out the “r”.
“celibrate”
Amazing what one missing letter can do to a word.
@Geoff
He also needed to change that “i” to an “e”.
CELEBRATE
How big a problem are these things? Any figures from law enforcement on how many they have confiscated in general…how many confiscated from actual crime scenes?
Leigh, I would argue these “things” are not a problem whatsoever, regardless of how many are used illegally. They are just things.
And we’ll never hear how many were actually recovered at crime scenes or identified as instruments of murder, because the number is virtually zero.
Only one that I know of. The Saugus High School shooting. That one hit me personally, as I’m an alumnus of that very school.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/11/22/kit-gun-used-saugus-high-school-shooting-california-what-it/4269036002/
The shooter’s deceased father had his registered guns confiscated when he became a prohibited person. My guess is that the father built a 1911 45 in order to have something, even though he was prohibited, or he may have had it all along, and not turned it in.
Few 16 year-olds have the skill set to build a 1911; I assume the shooter must’ve ‘inherited’ it.
I think you underestimate the skills of a 16 year old. They’re able to build and maintain automobiles, bicycles, computers, etc. The 1911 is simple assembly.
Perhaps we need to stock up…just in case.
So if it’s not 80% then what is it? 79%? 66.66666%? 0%? Will a pile of parts lying around in a workshop constitute a firearm even if I completely unaware that they could be combined to make a firearm? I say the correct number should be sqrt(-1)% because any number chosen is imaginary.
That number was concocted by the same mind set that came up with the capricious and arbitrary 10 round magazine capacity.
“So if it’s not 80% then what is it?”
That’s the problem. The ‘laws’ they have have proposed (or enacted) are so poorly-worded that a block of raw aluminum bar stock would qualify as a “gun part” that could only be sold through an FFL.
Seriously…
80% is a marketing term, not a legal term. BATFE doesn’t use “80%”, the item in question meets the definition of a firearm or it doesn’t.
Correct
“Rick Vasquez, a Virginia-based firearms consultant and former ATF technical expert who evaluated guns and gun products to help the bureau determine if they were legal, said anyone wanting to address the proliferation of kit guns should pass new laws in Congress.”
“The continued rapid advancement of tools and technology widely available to the public meant it was getting to the point where even rudimentary “chunks of metal” can be turned into firearms, Vasquez said.”
“How do you regulate that? The ATF can’t do it. This situation is uncontrollable because of technology, and I’m not sure what anyone can do about it.”
“There’s another big problem for the anti-gun advocates that are demanding the ATF strictly interpret their regulations on homemade firearms. As CNN reported earlier this year, former ATF agent Dan O’Kelly says the agency is already twisting the law in order to classify certain parts as receivers even though they don’t actually meet the federal definition- “That part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt or breechblock, and firing mechanism, and which is usually threaded at its forward portion to receive the barrel.”
“The problem — and this is where O’Kelly comes in — is that he says roughly 60% of the guns in America do not have a single part that falls under that definition. The AR-15, for example, has a split receiver — one upper and one lower. Neither meets the requirement on its own.”
“For 50 years, ATF has been making this square peg fit in the round hole,” O’Kelly told CNN, “when, in fact, it doesn’t.”
All forms of gun control are un Constitutional and has failed, be that as it may according to what Mr.Vasquez said if the Marxist’s grabbers push it in court they will poison the entire scam of gun control.
Which would be the best for Americans and the Constitution in the long run. There has already been 2 cases that were decided on the definition of receiver ,the jigs up and Beetlejuice and her overlords can’t see it, thankfully.
Afghans can make a AK47 reciever using a shovel. Will we need to serialize and conduct background parts on shovels?
We can go to any hardware store, buy materials that we could make a firearm, other destructive devices and even chemical weapons. Background checks before entering Home Depot?
They have been trying the same things for years and gun control hasn’t worked. Maybe try something else?
Wasn’t Ghost Busters setting in Chicago, I’d think they’d want ghost guns there. ,,,,, No really some of these terms for firearms and firearms related products are misappropriate, assault weapon is one, An AR is an offense or defense or sporting use weapon, it is not an assault weapon.
I figured Possums would only worry about the ghosts of other Possums murdered by F-150s driven by drunk rednecks coming back for revenge in a ditch near you… 😉
I found an 80% spear kit that fell in my backyard somehow, who knows what kind of carnage that could cause?! And to think we have them growing all over the place, without a single regulation to keep us safe!
California already has a law on the books that requires that builders of guns from 80% receivers obtain a unique serial number from the State (with a backgr9ound check), and engrave that number on the receiver before beginning work on building the gun. And then they just past, and I believe Gov. Noisome signed, a bill that will, like the ammo purchase law, ban on line sales and require that all “precursor parts” be purchased through a licensed precursor parts seller with an instant background check. So no ghost guns here–except for all the ones owned by people who don’t keep up on the ever changing spectacle of California gun laws. As far as can be ascertained, “precursor parts” are barrels, frames, triggers and trigger groups, and possibly barrels. Not sure about slides for semiauto pistols, but no reason to leave them out. Stocks, grips, sights, and fore-ends are probably safe from the law.
“requires that builders of guns from 80% receivers obtain a unique serial number from the State (with a backgr9ound check), and engrave that number on the receiver before beginning work on building the gun.”
Mark, what would happen if a Cali resident got the required serial number engraved on the Polymer 80 frame before construction, but the number was on a part of the frame that was to be machined away by the build? 🙂
Nope. Has to follow ATF serial engraving standards, so the S/N must be etched on the little metal plate located under the “nose” of the frame.
I personally know people (multiple people) who have been building without notifying CADOJ or getting serial numbers. They build them as SHTF guns, in which case a S/N will be the least of anyone’s worries. I myself have all my builds engraved (and yes, Mark, they were all done before the July 2018 deadline 🙂 ), but I also have a couple more 80% blanks stashed. So…all legal so far, but ya never know what tomorrow might bring from those nutty Dems.
Complete imbeciles. I challenge any of them to just complete the 80% lower successfully. The knowledge, skill and patience required to finish a functional 80% lower is obviously beyond the comprehension of these simple folk. Imagine any of them on that side of the fence even trying to get the right tools to do it, much less figuring out how to use them successfully the first time. Ikea furniture as a comparison? Seriously? Stupidity is exhausting.
Most of Lori’s constituents couldn’t hammer a nail without significant collateral damage to themselves and their surroundings, so I don’t think too many will be making guns from 80% receivers.
I love America.
You just can’t keep us under control!
To ban effectively the illegal making of firearms from raw materials upward, you would have to succeed at banning the machines currently avialable to do this. That is not 3D plastic printers. It is metal milling machines, multi-axis and computer controlled. There are many on the market, just Google “benchtop milling machine” and start reading. Prices have fallen considerably over the years as capabilities have only improved.
It is not worth the cost and effort for one gun. But to setup maufacturing on a small scale, it is easily in cost range of a criminal enterprise. They no longer need a full size machine shop, not to make handguns.
Once again and is ever true, focusing on the inanimate object is the path to failure. The root cause of crime is defects in the character of people. Focus on that, on the bad people, and you will get somewhere’s on crime.
Uhm…
Is that the German woman currently running the company in that ad?
For specific 80% lowers, yes, there’s that highly specific and dedicated machine.
What I reference is working from raw material on general purpose but smaller, bench top size CNC machines. The market has broadened, options are many, costs cover a wide range that has moved downward a bunch.
Then there’s the guy on YouTube who melts down range brass or aluminum cans and sand-casts rough receiver shapes. Then hand operates his milling machinery in his barn to create flat out beautiful guns.
The highly polished brass AR was especially stunning. And he started with a big bucket of used brass he’d picked up off the ground!!!
That was a great ad!
The pretty girl does a funky dance as the gun is milled.
Thank you for posting that.
Have not yet figured out how these guns load themselves and hurt people.
It’s a long standing Glock Feature. Evil Spirits. Poltergeists.
Evil spirited Austrian Poltergeists …. very exotic imports!!!
So… would 75% lowers be ok? How about just a block of aluminum?
I thought the Feds could only regulate interstate commerce… but since when has the Left ever cared about government or Constitutional restrictions…
No ban on the making of firearms by persons who are otherwise law abiding can ever be fair, reasonable, necessary or constitutional in my view. That includes a block of aluminum.
Gun crime where no gun is in fact used should be about intent, not the gun. If the person has criminal intent, such as making and selling guns to criminals for use in crimes, well those intents and actions are themselves the crime. Again, not the gun, not the thing, but what criminal deed the evil minded wanted to do with that inanimate object.
The unpopular part for this at times silly place is that both the conservative and liberal sides imagine themselves to be after the same end result. To get there they define, entirely out of a need for convenience, different elements and passages of the Constitution in ways favorable to their positions. Neither side is without caring or heart on any of this, they do massively disagree on how to solve criminal HUMAN violence.
And some are Hoplophobes, perhaps many, which is a mental illness of no small complexity. An invisible illness to those who suffer from it. An intolerable one to those who do not.
We will never convince more than a small percentage of the Hoplophobic that their fears do not translate into good laws or the reduction of crime.
What we could succeed at is focusing on the criminal. Enforcing existing laws, targetted enforcement on repeat offenders. Working to cure violence where it is a communicable disease (Chicago? Anyone? Hello?).
Leave the guns alone, all they do is lay about and collect dust.
Focus on the humans, they are the problem.
One person’s “ghost gun” is another’s “undocumented firearm”.
See y’all on the other side of the veil!👻
when lawmakers introduce laws trying to infringe on the rights of citizens all they accomplish is strengthening the black market which will always be uncontrollable. i live in ca and in the past two years have had the opportunity to purchase three full auto ar’s, which i didn’t, probably the ones that were left in cars by government employees and stolen. they can’t control their own law enforcement agencies, yet they want to control the entire country. as for 80% builds, it would take considerably more than a mindless moron that does stick-ups for a living to build one. it demands a certain amount of skill and adequate equipment, i know because i built a couple. as stated above, it’s not about the 80% builds or the bump stocks, it’s about control of the people. they want our freedom and i hope they never get it. i’m 71 years old and a dav, i grew up when this country was a great place to live and i was proud of it. now, not only do we have to deal with the worthless scum on the streets but we to fight with those who supposedly work for us. good luck to you citizens, it’s only going to get worse.
Of course you only need 4 parts from your DIY store make a single shot slam fire 12 Gauge shotgun.
Or spiffy it up with a wood stop and other accoutrements.
“wood STOCK”
Stupid auto correct.
Should be able build a wooden “thing that goes up”.
Great job