President Biden Announces New Regulations To Get Ghost Guns Off The Street

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) -- President Joe Biden on Monday took aim at ghost guns, the privately made firearms without serial numbers that are increasingly cropping up in violent crimes, as he struggles to break through gridlock in Washington to address gun deaths and mass shootings.

Speaking at the White House, President Biden highlighted the Justice Department's work to finalize new regulations to crack down on ghost guns.

"Law enforcement is sounding the alarm," Biden said of ghost guns, briefly holding one up for cameras to see in the Rose Garden. "Our communities are paying the price."

The new rule changes the current definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts, like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun. It says those parts must be licensed and include serial numbers. Manufacturers must also run background checks before a sale — as they do with other commercially made firearms. The requirement applies regardless of how the firearm was made, meaning it includes ghost guns made from individual parts, kits, or by 3D-printers.

Federally licensed firearms dealers must retain key records until they shut down their business or licensed activity and then transfer the records to ATF as they are currently required to do at the end of licensed activity. Previously, these dealers were permitted to destroy most records after 20 years, making it harder for law enforcement to trace firearms found at crime scenes.

The critical component in building an untraceable gun is what is known as the lower receiver, a part typically made of metal or polymer. An unfinished receiver — sometimes referred to as an "80-percent receiver" — can be legally bought online with no serial numbers or other markings on it, no license required.

For nearly a year, the ghost gun rule has been making its way through the federal regulation process. Gun safety groups and Democrats in Congress have been pushing for the Justice Department to finish the rule for months. It will likely be met with heavy resistance from gun groups and draw litigation in the coming weeks.

Still, the announcement on guns highlights the limits of Biden's influence to push a sweeping congressional overhaul of the nation's firearm laws in response to both a recent surge in violent crime and continued mass shootings. Congress has deadlocked on legislative proposals to reform gun laws for a decade, and executive actions have faced stiff headwinds in federal courts — even as the Democratic base has grown more vocal in calling on Biden to take more consequential action.

"A year ago this week standing here with many of you, I instructed the attorney general to write a regulation that would rein in the proliferation of ghost guns because I was having trouble getting anything passed in the Congress," Biden said.

Justice Department statistics show that nearly 24,000 ghost guns were recovered by law enforcement at crime scenes and reported to the government from 2016 to 2020. It is hard to say how many are circulating on the streets, in part because in many cases police departments don't contact the government about the guns because they can't be traced.

In 2017, a gunman who killed his wife and four others in the small Northern California town of Rancho Tehama Reserve, 135 miles north of Sacramento, had been prohibited from owning firearms, but he built his own to skirt the court order before his rampage. And in 2019, a teenager used a homemade handgun to fatally shoot two classmates and wound three others at a school in suburban Los Angeles.

Police across the country have been reporting spikes in ghost guns recovered by officers. In San Jose, 5 ghost guns were seized by police in 2017. But since January 2021, SJPD have seized 287 ghost guns.

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen expects the exponential increase in the number of seized ghost guns will begin reversing over time.

"I don't think it's going to come down to zero. But I would hope that in a couple of years, it has not only plateaued but started to go down as law enforcement has been able to crack down," said Rosen.

In February, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office announced the arrest of three suspects in connection with running an alleged "ghost gun factory" in San Jose's Willow Glen neighborhood.

Rosen said the new rule should significantly stem the flow of ghost guns into the hands of criminals, but admitted it could also drive some illegal builders to sell their goods on the black market.

"Well, the answer to that is yes. We know that these guns are being built underground. This law is not going to make that go away. This executive order signed by the President is another tool that law enforcement can do to, if not put the genie all the way back into the bottle, to start stuffing the genie as much as possible into the bottle," said Rosen.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo attended today's announcement at the White House and said the new rule will empower federal authorities to regulate the makers of gun parts and gun kits.

"The tragic thing is it actually doesn't take much skill to put one of these ghost guns together," said Liccardo. "Making sure the manufacturers understand that they are acting illegally under federal law and have the power, the authority, of the federal government to be able to go after these manufacturers."

Gun Owners of America vowed that it would immediately fight the rule.

"Just as we opposed the Trump Administration's arbitrary ban on bump stocks, GOA will also sue Biden's ATF to halt the implementation of this rule," Aidan Johnston, the group's director of federal affairs said in a statement. The group believes the rule violates the U.S. Constitution and several federal laws.

Two of the nation's largest gun kit sellers, Polymer80 and 1911 Builders did not respond to a request for comment.

The rule goes into effect 120 days from the date of publication in the Federal Register.