ATF’s Final Rule to End the Proliferation of Dangerous, Untraceable Ghost Guns

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) announced a final rulemaking that would end the proliferation of untraceable ghost guns by clarifying that their core building blocks are firearms under the law—ensuring they are traceable and that licensed dealers conduct a background check before their sale. The rulemaking was first proposed in May 2021 as part of a slate of lifesaving executive actions announced by President Joe Biden to address the nation’s gun violence crisis. 

Ghost guns are do-it-yourself guns made from readily available, untraceable building blocks. 

• Ghost guns are very easy to make: their core building blocks (nearly-complete frames or receivers) can be bought online or at a gun show and are designed and marketed to be easily converted into a fully functional firearm with little skill. 
• Ghost guns are the fastest-growing gun safety problem facing our country and have emerged as a weapon of choice for violent criminals, gun traffickers, dangerous extremists, and other people legally prohibited from buying firearms. Ghost guns are also the thread connecting a recent increase in gunfire on school grounds. Schools in Arizona, New Mexico, Maryland, and Kansas have been devastated by school shootings involving ghost guns – highlighting a scary trend and another important reason to regulate these dangerous weapons.

This final rule would shutter many of the ghost gun companies that flooded the market with untraceable ghost guns intentionally designed to evade regulation.

• Everytown’s research has revealed over 100 companies selling ghost gun parts online. And despite years of headlines making clear that ghost guns were being bought and used by mass shooters, extremists, and children, ghost gun companies continue to sell untraceable ghost gun kits and parts online with no questions asked.
• This rule corrects ATF’s previous interpretation of federal law to ensure that these companies can no longer evade regulation. Under federal law, the definition of “firearm” includes both operable weapons and the core building block of a weapon—the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun. The law also covers nearly-complete weapons and kits that can readily be converted into an operable firearm or an operable frame or receiver. 
• ATF had previously taken the position that certain frames and receivers do not qualify as firearms, even if they only require a minimal amount of drilling or milling to “finish” them. The rulemaking cures this flawed interpretation by clarifying that nearly-complete frames and receivers are firearms if they can be easily turned into one and by revoking ATF’s prior flawed determination letters.
• This rule also confirms that all-in-one ghost gun kits are “firearms” under federal law and it codifies a list of factors that courts have used to determine if a core building block may be “readily” converted into an operable firearm, ensuring that nearly-complete frames and receivers, such as 80% receivers, are regulated as firearms under federal law.

When the rule goes into effect in August, ghost gun sellers will be required to abide by the same rules and regulations as any other gun seller

• Under the rule, manufacturers and dealers of ghost gun building blocks must be federally licensed, the building blocks marked with serial numbers, and purchasers must pass a background check before buying these parts from a licensed dealer. 
• The rule does not ban the possession of ghost guns altogether. People who already own ghost guns can still have them, so long as they aren’t legally prohibited from owning guns. But any dealers that have ghost guns in their inventory must serialize them, as well as any unserialized ghost guns they acquire in the future. 
• 10 states and D.C. already have laws on the books regulating ghost guns, and several of those laws go further than this rule by banning the possession of ghost guns. But states on their own are unable to cut off the national supply chain for ghost guns, which this rule will finally do. 

The rule does not infringe on Second Amendment rights, nor does it prevent hobbyists from building their own guns.

• Every federal court to have considered a Second Amendment challenge to a state or local ghost guns regulation has rejected it. Federal courts agree that there is also no Second Amendment right to an unserialized gun or a gun purchased without a background check. Further, companies have no Second Amendment right to sell unserialized guns.
• Nearly-complete frames and receivers and ghost gun kits are intentionally designed and marketed to require as little technical expertise, time, and effort as possible to assemble, unlike home-built firearms made by gunsmiths and hobbyists. Hobbyists can still acquire nearly complete frames and receivers to build a firearm, the only difference is that the parts will be serialized and companies will do a background check. 

The call for action on ghost guns has grown significantly in the past couple of years and Everytown has been at the forefront of the fight.