GHOST GUNS

DC Seeks To Ban ‘Ghost Gun’ Kits As Seizures Of Homemade Weapons Soar

LAPPL News Watch
February 28, 2020

The number of untraceable “ghost guns” built from kits and seized by police has begun to surge in the District and some other areas nationwide, raising concerns that firearm traffickers have found a new way to bypass background checks and pour more weapons into cities struggling with violence.

D.C. police said such guns were used in three killings in the city in recent years. District officers last year took 116 ghost guns off the streets, compared with just three in 2017.

Police in Philadelphia, Baltimore and suburban Maryland also said they are seeing more of the weapons, even as authorities in other big cities said they have yet to recover a single ghost gun.

The kits can be purchased without the background checks and other requirements needed to buy fully operational guns. Assembling a gun out of parts obtained through a gun dealer or the Internet is largely legal in the United States, and results in a weapon with no serial number or traceable link to a gun manufacturer: Thus, a “ghost gun.”