Biden takes aim at “ghost guns”

President Joe Biden said Monday that the Justice Department will make it illegal to manufacture gun kits without serial numbers on each of the parts, or for a gun dealer to sell them without a background check. These privately made firearms are hard to trace and often a preferred choice for criminals. The Justice Department has reported nearly 24,000 so-called ghost guns recovered at crime scenes between 2016 and 2020, though many local police departments do not report these weapons to the government because they are untraceable.

What does the new rule do? The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is changing the definition of a firearm to include unfinished parts. Previously, it was legal for a person to make his own firearm as long as he did not plan to sell it, but under the new rule, each part needs its own serial number. Some gun rights groups have pledged to challenge the new regulation in court, arguing that it violates federal law.

Dig deeper: From the archives, listen to Sarah Schweinsberg’s report in The World and Everything in It podcast on a renewed push for gun control in the wake of mass shootings.