The Crackdown on Ghost Guns

The Crackdown on Ghost Guns

Megan Pierret, Staff Writer

On Monday, April 11th, Joe Biden announces that he will be taking steps towards controlling the use of ghost guns.

These are untraceable, at-home kits that you can find online or in a store to make your own weapons. Officers have recently pointed out that these weapons have been showing up in crime scenes more often, and because they do not include a serial number it becomes more difficult to trace the owner.

This issue has become increasingly more talked about as gun violence becomes more present in our world today as well as receiving pressure from leftists to crack down on gun laws. While speaking to victims of gun violence at a Rose Garden ceremony, Biden states, “These guns are weapons of choice for many criminals, we are going to do everything we can to deprive them of that choice and, when we find them, put them in jail for a long, long time.”

To accomplish this, he plans to clarify that unfinished parts of guns will now pass as a firearm. He will also require that manufacturers of these kits will have to be licensed and must add a serial number to either the frame or the receiver of each gun. Before persons are allowed to purchase these kits, they must run a thorough background check just like they have to do with commercially sold firearms.

Biden has also called on Congress to ban the sale and possession of ghost guns where he has received a lot of backfire from the group, Gun Owners of America. They have said that they would immediately sue under the second amendment. This groups director of federal affairs, Aidan Johnston, accusing Biden of attempting to create a national gun registry in order to end any sale of guns online without passage of law.

In the end, the Justice Department will be requiring that licensed dealers will be required to add a serial number on to any firearms that they may be sold. They will also require these dealers to keep records up until the day that they shut down where they will then transfer these records to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

While people are hoping that these steps will help reduce some of the crime, there will be a lot of push back from the right while leftists are hoping to push these rules forward.