SCOTUS upholds Biden rules for ghost guns

The United States’ highest court on Wednesday ruled that Biden-era regulations should continue to control weapon parts kits. The 7-2 opinion found that existing gun laws apply to the kits, which enable people to build hard-to-trace homemade firearms also known as ghost guns.

Justices Thomas and Alito dissented. The definition of a firearm shouldn’t be changed to include unfinished parts, Thomas wrote.

Commercially sold kits have surged in popularity in recent years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Between 2017 and 2023, the number of privately made firearms recovered in connection with crimes surged from 1,629 to 27,490, the ATF wrote in a recent report.

What are the upheld rules about ghost guns?

• Retailers must run background checks before selling gun assembly kits.

• Several types of gun parts must be marked with a serial number.

• Federally licensed firearms dealers and gunsmiths must have a serial number added to any unnumbered firearms, such as 3D-printed guns, that they take into inventory,

• Federal firearms licensees, including gun retailers, must keep sales records for the entire time they are licensed.

Dig deeper: Read my report on the Trump administration’s emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to halt a rehiring order.