The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives judges each component on a case-by-case basis, using specific, if subjective, technical standards, illustrated with annotated photographs on the agency’s website. If it is less than 80 percent finished, it is not subject to the same federal safeguards. Under federal law, any frame or receiver considered 80 percent finished is a functional firearm subject to the same regulations as a fully assembled gun. Ghost guns pose a more elemental question: What makes a gun a gun?Įvery semiautomatic weapon consists of two main parts: the movable upper “slide,” which sits on the barrel of a pistol, and the “receiver” or “frame” - the lower part to which almost everything else, including the trigger and magazine, can be attached and made functional after drilling a few holes and filing a groove into an unfinished, factory-produced frame. The decades-long debate over gun control in Washington revolves around the regulation of traditional firearms. Tagle said, because he was not allowed to bring violent toys into the home. His parents, Aida Mendoza and William Tagle, returned home after the news vans had driven away and the police had scoured the apartment for other weapons.Īll they found was Max’s broken BB gun. Max Mendoza’s death, by contrast, flickered on the local TV news in San Diego for a weekend.
And gun control groups have raised doubts about the robustness of enforcement by federal firearms regulators. “It’s definitely going to stop some of the most obvious problems,” said the Los Angeles city attorney, Mike Feuer, who is suing a leading gun-parts vendor.īut the new rules, which are likely to be challenged in court by gun rights groups, are not expected to be implemented until early next year, after a lengthy public comment process. Law enforcement officials in California think that the rules would do much to keep ghost guns out of the hands of criminals and children. The rules would essentially treat ghost guns as traditional firearms - requiring core components to be engraved with serial numbers, imposing background checks and requiring online purchasers to pick up their orders at federally licensed gun shops. Max Mendoza, 12, was killed by a ghost gun in Chula Vista, Calif.Ĭlosing that loophole is the focus of new regulations ordered by President Biden - the most prominent surviving plank of his effort to combat gun violence, announced after a string of mass shootings this year. Since January 2016, about 25,000 privately made firearms have been confiscated by local and federal law enforcement agencies nationwide. This isn’t just happening on the West Coast. But they believe it is basically a matter of a new, disruptive technology gradually gaining traction in a market, then rocketing up when buyers catch on. Law enforcement officials are not exactly sure why their use is taking off. By the beginning of October, he said, the department had recovered almost 400 ghost guns, about double the total for all of 2020 with nearly three months to go in the year. Paul Phillips of the San Diego Police Department, who this year organized the force’s first unit dedicated to homemade firearms. “I’ve been on the force for 30 years next month, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Lt.
The vast majority of suspects caught with them were legally prohibited from having guns. Over the past 18 months, the officials said, ghost guns accounted for 25 to 50 percent of firearms recovered at crime scenes. Nowhere is that truer than in California, where their proliferation has reached epidemic proportions, according to local and federal law enforcement officials in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego and San Francisco. The criminal underground has long relied on stolen weapons with filed-off serial numbers, but ghost guns represent a digital-age upgrade, and they are especially prevalent in coastal blue states with strict firearm laws.
Ghost guns - untraceable firearms without serial numbers, assembled from components bought online - are increasingly becoming the lethal weapon of easy access for those legally barred from buying or owning guns around the country. What is certain is the kind of weapon that killed Max.
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