Supreme Court weighs challenge to Biden plan to crack down on untraceable 'ghost gun' kits
The Supreme Court takes on another battle over restrictions on firearms as the justices consider the Biden administration's move to ban "ghost gun" kits that allow people to assemble deadly weapons at home while skirting existing regulations.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday takes on another battle over restrictions on firearms as the justices consider the Biden administration's move to regulate "ghost gun" kits that allow people to assemble deadly weapons at home while skirting existing regulations.
The administration wants the kits to be regulated the same way as other firearms, meaning that manufacturers and sellers would have to obtain licenses, mark the products with serial numbers, require background checks and maintain records.
The case comes just months after the court, which regularly backs gun rights, ruled that a federal ban on bump stocks — a gun accessory used to allow semiautomatic rifles to fire quickly — was unlawful. In another gun case that marked a win for the Biden administration, the court in June upheld a federal law that bars people subjected to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms.
In the case now before the nine justices, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which issued the restriction in 2022, says ghost guns are regularly used by violent criminals precisely because they are difficult to trace.
In court papers, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the ATF, referred to an “urgent public safety and law enforcement crisis posed by the exponential rise of untraceable firearms.”
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