The Supreme Court Is Right About “Ghost Guns”

On March 26, the Supreme Court upheld the Biden administration’s regulations on “ghost guns”—privately assembled firearms with no serial numbers—ruling that they were in line with the relevant authorizing statute. These weapons have played a small but growing role in American gun crime in recent years. The Court’s go-ahead is a welcome development for those who care about targeted, legally sound gun-crime enforcement.

Professional gun manufacturers and dealers must follow many rules. They need to get licenses, put serial numbers on their guns, perform background checks on buyers, and keep records of their sales. A law-abiding private citizen, by contrast, can build a gun for personal use without doing any of that.

This raises a question: What pre-manufactured gun parts can a business legally sell to a person building his own weapon? According to federal law, a gun’s “frame or receiver,” which houses the firing mechanism, is itself a firearm, and therefore subject to regulation. The law also defines as firearms nonfunctional guns that “may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.”

Traditionally, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) allowed the sale of “80 percent” receivers, meaning a receiver that is almost finished but could be completed with significant labor and machining know-how. Over the past decade, however, some manufacturers fine-tuned these products into “Buy Build Shoot” kits. Such kits could be purchased online and finished at home in half an hour, with only modest technical skills and common tools.

These kits were popular with gun enthusiasts, but also with criminals. The number of privately made guns recovered by police and reported to the ATF soared from just 1,629 in 2017 to 27,232 in 2022 (though the numbers are incomplete). In some cities and states, especially those with stricter gun laws, ghost guns came to account for a sizeable share of recovered crime guns: for example, 18.5 percent in California in 2021 and 12 percent in New York City in early 2022.

Enter the Biden administration’s regulations, as well as numerous state laws.

In 2022, the White House adopted a broader interpretation of the federal statute, including its “may readily be converted” language. It treated easily completed kits the same as fully functional guns, requiring that such kits carry serial numbers and that their buyers receive background checks. While the new framework is necessarily somewhat subjective—hinging on, for example, how far the receiver is from completion and the inclusion of items such as jigs and molds—sellers who doubt whether their product qualifies as a firearm may ask for ATF approval.

One might argue that Congress, not the executive branch, should set these rules. Nonetheless, as the Court has now affirmed in a 7-2 ruling written by Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch, the existing law’s wording is broad enough to allow the ATF’s interpretation. Specific applications of the rules might still cross the line, as the case only addressed a “facial” challenge to the regulations—that is, whether they were illegal per se. And of course, the Trump administration may opt to promulgate a different rule entirely.

But the White House should think twice before abandoning the policy, as federal and state regulations seem to reduce the proliferation of ghost guns. According to ATF data, ghost-gun recoveries leveled off nationally in 2023, finishing within 1 percent of the 2022 total after surging continuously every year since 2017. California, which implemented its own regulations in mid-2022, reports that ghost-gun recoveries fell from 10,877 in 2021, to 10,098 in 2022, and to 8,340 in 2023. The New York City Mayor’s Office similarly found ghost-gun recoveries fell from a peak of 585 in 2022 to 394 in 2023, though they crept up to 438 in 2024; New York State implemented restrictions on ghost guns in 2022.

It’s hard to say whether these laws reduce overall gun crime. Criminals prevented from getting ghost guns may well find different weapons instead. On the other hand, the fact that these firearms were being used in more gun crimes in recent years indicates that criminals saw an advantage in using them.

Even in the gun-saturated U.S., regulations can sometimes curb firearm crime. As Anthony A. Braga and Philip J. Cook noted in their book Policing Gun Violence, surveys of criminals in Chicago and New York have found that it often takes them more than a week to acquire a firearm. Regulatory roadblocks are a useful tool to disrupt these criminals’ access to guns, especially given that hot tempers and interpersonal arguments drive so much of our gun-violence problem.

As a matter of public policy, making untraceable firearms easily available without a background check is not a good idea. The Court’s decision is a fair interpretation of the law and makes it at least marginally harder for criminals to procure guns, while leaving untrammeled the rights of those who can pass background checks.

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