WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday takes on another battle over restrictions on firearms as the justices consider the Biden administration’s move to ban “ghost gun” kits that allow people to assemble deadly weapons at home while skirting existing regulations.
The administration wants the kits to be regulated the same way as other firearms, meaning that manufacturers and sellers would have to obtain licenses, mark the products with serial numbers, require background checks and maintain records.
The case comes just months after the court, which regularly backs gun rights, ruled that a federal ban on bump stocks — a gun accessory used to allow semiautomatic rifles to fire quickly — was unlawful. In another gun case that marked a win for the Biden administration, the court in June upheld a federal law that bars people subjected to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms.
In the case now before the nine justices, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which issued the ban in 2022, says ghost guns are regularly used by violent criminals precisely because they are difficult to trace.
In court papers, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the ATF, referred to an “urgent public safety and law enforcement crisis posed by the exponential rise of untraceable firearms.”
New York City alone has seized hundreds of ghost guns and related parts, according to a brief filed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
The ban is currently in effect, with the Supreme Court last year refusing to block it while litigation continued. That decision, which was 5-4, could give an indication of how the justices will ultimately decide the case.
Then, Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberal justices in the majority.
The new regulation clarified that the parts used to make ghost guns fit within the definition of “firearm” under the federal Gun Control Act, meaning the government has the power to regulate them the same way it regulates firearms made and sold through the traditional process.
The law states that the regulations apply to “any weapon … which will or is designed to or may be readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.” It also covers the “frame or receiver of any such weapon.” The frame or receiver is the part of a firearm that houses other components, including the firing mechanism.
The case reached the Supreme Court after Texas-based U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor last year ruled in favor of Jennifer VanDerStok and Michael Andren, who own components they want to use to build guns. Plaintiffs also include gun rights groups and the makers and sellers of ghost guns.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals mostly ruled for the challengers.
The challengers focus on the text of the Gun Control Act, saying in their brief that the law simply doesn’t apply to gun kits. The ATF does not have unilateral authority to ban ghost guns, with Congress required to act if it wants to do so, they argue.
The regulation significantly expands on the language in the law by saying that items that can easily be converted for use as a frame or receiver are covered, lawyers for the the challengers wrote.
“That violates the plain text of the statute,” they said.
Those defending the availability of ghost gun kits say that they are mostly used by hobbyists, rejecting the government’s argument that criminals favor them.
Although it is a gun case, the legal question does not turn on the right to bear arms under the Constitution’s 2nd Amendment.
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