President Biden will announce new rules cracking down on ghost guns and two executive actions on gun violence.
According to a fact sheet provided to PoliticusUSA by the White House:
Today, the President and Deputy Attorney General will also announce that the U.S. Department of Justice has issued a final rule to rein in the proliferation of “ghost guns” – unserialized, privately-made firearms that law enforcement are increasingly recovering at crime scenes in cities across the country. Last year alone, there were approximately 20,000 suspected ghost guns reported to ATF as having been recovered by law enforcement in criminal investigations – a ten-fold increase from 2016. Because ghost guns lack the serial numbers marked on other firearms, law enforcement has an exceedingly difficult time tracing a ghost gun found at a crime scene back to an individual purchaser.
This final rule bans the business of manufacturing the most accessible ghost guns, such as unserialized “buy build shoot” kits that individuals can buy online or at a store without a background check and can readily assemble into a working firearm in as little as 30 minutes with equipment they have at home. This rule clarifies that these kits qualify as “firearms” under the Gun Control Act, and that commercial manufacturers of such kits must therefore become licensed and include serial numbers on the kits’ frame or receiver, and commercial sellers of these kits must become federally licensed and run background checks prior to a sale – just like they have to do with other commercially-made firearms.
The final rule will also help turn some ghost guns already in circulation into serialized firearms. Through this rule, the Justice Department is requiring federally licensed dealers and gunsmiths taking any unserialized firearm into inventory to serialize that weapon. For example, if an individual builds a firearm at home and then sells it to a pawn broker or another federally licensed dealer, that dealer must put a serial number on the weapon before selling it to a customer. This requirement will apply regardless of how the firearm was made, meaning it includes ghost guns made from individual parts, kits, or by 3D-printers.
Gun violence groups have been disappointed with President Biden’s lack of action and pressure has been growing on the White House to do more about gun violence.
Any president is limited by what they can do through rule changes and executive action alone. The real changes have to come from Congress, where the House has taken comprehensive action, but the Senate, thanks to the 60 vote rule, and a couple of Democratic senators who are scared to take on the gun lobby, has done nothing.
If voters want common-sense gun laws, they need to vote for candidates who will deliver them in November.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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