US supreme court signals willingness to uphold regulation on ‘ghost gun’ kits

The US supreme court signalled a willingness to uphold the regulation of "ghost guns" - firearms without serial numbers that are built from kits that people can order online and assemble at home.

The manufacturers and gun rights groups challenging the rule argued the Biden administration overstepped by trying to regulate kits.Justice Samuel Alito compared gun parts to meal ingredients, saying a lineup including eggs and peppers isn't necessarily a Western omelet. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, though, questioned whether gun kits are more like ready-to-eat meal kits that contain everything needed to make a dinner like turkey chili.Chief Justice John Roberts seemed skeptical of the challengers' position that the kits are mostly popular with hobbyists who enjoy making their own weapons, like auto enthusiasts might rebuild a car on the weekend.Many ghost gun kits require only the drilling of a few holes and removal of plastic tabs. "My understanding is that it's not terribly difficult to do this," Roberts said. "He really wouldn't think he has built that gun, would he?" A ruling is expected in the coming months.

As ghost guns were increasingly used in crimes - including 1,200 homicides and attempted homicides between 2016 and 2022, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms - the Biden administration issued new rules regulating them in 2022. The new ATF rule classified ghost gun kits as firearms under the Gun Control Act of 1968, the US's main firearms law - making them subject to the same regulations as all other guns.

Since the rule went into effect, police departments in cities like New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia have all recovered fewer ghost guns at crime scenes.

However, firearms manufacturers and gun-rights groups quickly sued to block the ATF rule. A federal district court judge in Texas ruled against the ATF in 2023 - but the Biden administration appealed the decision to the fifth circuit court of appeals. While that decision was pending, the supreme court intervened to keep the regulation in effect, by a narrow 5-4 vote. The fifth circuit ultimately ruled against the Biden administration, which then appealed the case to the supreme court.

Garland v VanDerStok will require the supreme court to consider issues of firearm policy, but also the extent of federal regulatory powers. The court has been resistant to regulate guns in recent years, issuing decisions like a 2022 ruling striking down New York state's ban on concealed carry firearms and a decision earlier this year overturning a ban on bump stocks.

At the same time, the court has been wary of federal regulatory power, overturning a 40-year-old legal precedent known as Chevron deference, which allowed agencies like the ATF to broadly interpret the laws they are charged with implementing, earlier this year.

The supreme court sided with the Biden administration last year, allowing the regulation to go. Roberts and Barrett joined with the court's three liberal members to form the majority.

Ghost guns, which can be assembled at home in under an hour to produce a fully functional weapon, used to be rare, except among hobbyists. In 2016, police recovered about 1,800 such firearms. But by 2021, that number had soared to nearly 20,000, according to the justice department. The weapons' popularity was in part tied to the fact they were not regulated like already assembled firearms: they had no serial number, no sales records and did not require a background check.