The Supreme Court on Monday ordered two internet sellers of gun parts to comply with a Biden administration regulation aimed at ghost guns, firearms that are difficult to trace because they lack serial numbers.
The court had intervened once before, by a 5-4 vote in August, to keep the regulation in effect after it had been invalidated by a lower court. No justice dissented publicly from Monday’s order, which followed a ruling from a federal judge in Texas that exempted the two companies, Blackhawk Manufacturing Group and Defense Distributed, from having to abide by the regulation of ghost gun kits.
Other makers of gun parts also had been seeking similar court orders, the administration told the Supreme Court in a filing.
“Absent relief from this Court, therefore, untraceable ghost guns will remain widely available to anyone with a computer and a credit card — no background check required,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote.
The regulation changed the definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts, like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun, so they can be tracked more easily. Those parts must be licensed and include serial numbers. Manufacturers must also run background checks before a sale — as they do with other commercially made firearms.
The requirement applies regardless of how the firearm was made, meaning it includes ghost guns made from individual parts or kits or by 3D printers.
The regulation will be in effect while the administration appeals the judge’s ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans — and potentially the Supreme Court.
(AP)
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2 Responses
So, I guess we dodged a bullet.
This is just an administrative decision. It’s not very comprehensible, because the rule is clearly wrong. Private manufacture of firearms is not something dangerous or frightening. It’s an American tradition going back to before there even was a USA, and nobody thought to regulate it until recently. But it’s one thing to regulate the manufacture of actual firearms, defined as a lower receiver. But to regulate any part that could conceivably be made part of a firearm has no limit. Almost any metal part could be part of a firearm. Even a plain block of metal can be formed into a firearm! It is outrageous to regulate that.
It’s just as outrageous as the new proposal in NY to require background checks whenever someone buys a 3D printer! Imagine trying to implement that! How are computer stores even supposed to conduct background checks? They are not connected to NCIS. And what a burden on those stores, and on the entire public who buy printers! All because it is possible to print firearm parts! Of course it is! That doesn’t give the state the right to put such an outrageous burden on people. And the same is true of the sale of metal parts.