Ghost-gun sellers quickly work around new Biden restrictions

Sellers of DIY gun kits, also known as “ghost guns,” have found a workaround to a new White House rule aimed at regulating and registering their sale.

On Aug. 24, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives enacted rules that put homemade firearms kits in the same legal category as traditional firearms. Among other things, they require the licensed gun manufacturers to add serial numbers to critical components – the frames and receivers – and conduct background checks on buyers.

In response, ghost-gun companies have broken the kits up and selling parts separately. Buyers are responsible for collecting the necessary parts for a functional weapon on their own.

“If somebody wants to make a firearm at their home without a serial number, they can do it just as easily as they could last week,” Rob Pincus, a firearms instructor, author and consultant on ghost guns told The Wall Street Journal.

President Joe Biden ordered the new restrictions last year. Gun control advocates claim ghost guns appealed to criminals because their off-the-grid nature allowed them to build firearms without a background check.

“This rule will make it harder for criminals and other prohibited persons to obtain untraceable guns,” Attorney General Merrick Garland in August. “It will help reduce the number of untraceable firearms flooding our communities.”

About 20,000 unregistered ghost guns were recovered by law enforcement in criminal investigations in 2021, according to ATF data. This was a tenfold increase from the number found in 2016.

Gun rights advocates say concerns about criminals hoarding ghost guns are exaggerated and that most builders are hobbyists.

The Wall Street Journal reports some ghost gun manufacturers have stopped selling certain parts that may run afoul of the new rules, only to have others offer the missing parts in their stead.

For example, unfinished and unmarked receivers were often bundled with jigs to help position them under a drill press. Polymer80, a vendor of these receivers, stopped including the jigs after the ATF rules took effect. But Ghostguns.com said they would begin selling jigs – without receivers.

“This is going to mean that very little will change,” said Cody Wilson, an executive at Ghostguns.com.