Last month, a federal judge known for creatively reading the law to achieve conservative policy outcomes handed down a decision that would open a significant loophole in US gun laws. Now it’s up to the Supreme Court to decide whether to let this decision, which would make it quite easy for violent criminals to obtain firearms, go into effect.
The case involves so-called “ghost guns,” weapons that are sold dismantled in ready-to-assemble kits. Judge Reed O’Connor’s opinion in VanDerStok v. Garland would effectively immunize these weapons from federal laws requiring gun buyers to submit to a background check, as well as laws requiring all guns to have a serial number, which can be used to track them.
The laws requiring background checks and serial numbers apply to “any weapon … which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.” It also applies to “the frame or receiver of any such weapon,” the skeletal part of a firearm that houses other components, such as the barrel or trigger mechanism. Thus, even if someone purchases a series of firearm parts to assemble a gun at home, they will still face a background check when they purchase the gun’s frame or receiver.
Ghost guns are often sold as kits, a collection of gun parts that can be assembled into a functional gun. Often, the frame or receiver in this kit is sold in a condition that isn’t entirely ready for use — though, according to the Justice Department, these incomplete frames and receivers are often very easy to finish. In some cases, a ghost gun buyer can build a working gun after drilling a single additional hole in the kit’s frame. In other cases, they merely need to sand off a small plastic rail.
Nevertheless, O’Connor ruled in his VanDerStok decision that these kits are exempt from the background check and serial number laws. Recall that these laws apply to “any weapon” that can be “readily converted to…
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