Are you afraid of ghosts?
Then why fear “ghost guns”?
President Biden and his administration have time and again demonized so-called ghost guns, as if they haunt them in the night and are far more dangerous than corporeal guns. Contrary to the mischaracterization, these homemade firearms are not coming to life while their owners sleep and going on murderous crime sprees. The left makes no secret of their disdain for guns, and I've thoroughly in the past addressed our right, protected by the second amendment, to keep arms. You can find one such article of mine here:
In this case, however, I'd like to tackle some statements made by President Biden over the past two years regarding ghost guns. For the most part, these statements are so ludicrous that they can be addressed without reference to the second amendment.
In an address to a joint session of Congress on April 28, 2021, President Biden discussing steps he intended to take toward curing what he called “an epidemic” of gun violence, said:
One of them is banning so—called “ghost guns.”
They are homemade guns built from a kit that includes the directions on how to finish the firearm.
The parts have no serial numbers, so when they show up at a crime scene, they can’t be traced.
The buyers of ghost gun kits aren’t required to pass a background check.
Anyone from a criminal to a terrorist could buy this kit and, in as little as 30 minutes, put together a lethal weapon.
Further, in a Rose Garden speech, on April 11, 2022 he said:
You know, if you buy a couch you have to assemble, it’s still a couch. If you order a package, like this one over here, that includes the parts you need, the directions for assembling a functioning firearm, you bought a gun.
Take a look. Take a look at this. It comes in this package. You can see the picture down here maybe. This is the gun.
(Holds up upper and lower receivers of a handgun.)
It’s not hard to put together. A little drill — hand drill at home. It doesn’t take very long. Anyone can order it in the mail. Anyone.
And, folks, a felon, a terrorist, a domestic abuser can go from a gun kit to a gun in as little as 30 minutes.
Buyers aren’t required to pass background checks. Because guns have no serial numbers — these guns — when they show up at a crime scene, they can’t be traced. Harder to find and prove who used them. Meaning you can’t connect the gun to the shooter and hold them accountable.
Notice that even the President prefaces the term ghost guns with “so-called”. Why? Because the term is nonsensical. These firearms don’t float above the ground or pass through walls. They don’t rattle chains or say “boo.” They are no different than other firearms with two exceptions: they are not completed by a manufacturer, and they carry no serial number. This latter point, that the unfinished receiver is not serialized, is what has earned these firearms their phantasmic nickname. This spectral moniker is used for no purpose other than to spook the average person who knows little about firearms; after all, if a person’s blood curdles at the thought of an apparitional projectile-launching piece of metal, it is easy to convince them that such phantom-like tools should not be legal. As a matter of fact, President Biden gave the ATF instructions to modify their definition of a firearm and the accompanying rules to make revenant rifles illegal. The new rule goes into effect in just a few days.
What exactly is a ghost gun? It is not a Colt that Casper carries concealed. Rather, as the President rightly described, it is a firearm that is assembled “at home” by someone other than the manufacturer. Americans have been building guns at home since the founding of the country, so this is nothing new. In regard to what the President was addressing, the foundation of such a firearm, whether handgun or rifle, is not ectoplasm - it is what is known as an 80% lower receiver (in the case of a rifle) or an 80% frame (in the case of a pistol) as seen in the pictures below. This is the part of the firearm into which the magazine is inserted, to which the grip and stock are attached (in the case of a rifle), and into which the safety, trigger, and hammer or striker (the fire control group or FCG), and the bolt or slide catch are installed. The reason this part is known as 80%, and why the ATF had not (yet) classified it as a firearm, is not because it has not fully materialized; it is because the cavity into which the fire control group is installed has not been milled. When purchased, the necessary cavity for the FCG is solid aluminum or polymer. As such, even if assembled with the remaining parts of a firearm, it could not fire a projectile.
Just how much of what the President said is true? Why stoke so much fear over these particular peashooters?
Let’s set aside for the moment the fact that the President having an 80% pistol frame at the Whitehouse is illegal (https://legiscan.com/DC/text/PR24-0475/2021 ). Let’s also set aside that the advent of inexpensive 3D printers has made it so anyone can print a frame or lower receiver at home. Instead, let’s look at the President’s statement that these kits make assembling a firearm so easy, it can be done in 30 minutes. NBC News did a story on just how “easy” it is,
and though the reporter said they could have done it themselves, they actually took the kit they purchased to special agents at the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office who built it for them in a little over an hour. An hour is more than 30 minutes; also, it is illegal to build a homemade firearm for someone else; they can only legally be built for personal use. In attempting to prove the President’s point, NBC and the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office violated federal law. While these experts who illegally built a ghost gun for NBC were able to do so in a little over an hour, another reporter with less experience did manage to complete one on his own; however, as he states himself in his article detailing the experience, it took him a little less than eight hours, spread over multiple days, and that in itself could act “in a way, as ‘its own cooling off period.’” - https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/how-easy-is-it-to-build-a-ghost-gun-we-asked-our-reporter-to-find-out/ . This reporter also was struck with “sticker shock” when hit with the reality of the price for all the necessary parts (the overall cost was in the neighborhood of $500, not including any tools he used) and he described the process as “more laborious than [he’d] been led to believe.” It is clear from both of these reports that the claim that anyone could “go from a pistol kit to a gun in as little as 30 minutes” is patently false. If building a rifle from an 80% lower receiver, without the aid of a fairly expensive programmable CNC machine, it will take the average person using a drill press, table top mill, or a router at least a couple of hours just to remove the aluminum necessary to create the channel for installation of the fire control group.
Now while all of that may be interesting, what most reveals President Biden's repetition of these talking points as a false flag operation is his statement that, "The parts have no serial numbers, so when they show up at a crime scene, they can't be traced." It is true these supposedly ephemeral entities have no serial numbers, but ask yourself this: when is the last time you read an article in the New York Times or Washington Post or from the Associated Press about a violent crime committed with a ghost gun? If ghost guns are so problematic, why don't we hear on ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN or any of the left-leaning media outlets about all of the ghost guns being found at the scenes of mass shootings? Surely if these ghost guns are so problematic, the main stream media would be airing such stories around the clock. They'd be tripping over themselves to point out how, in light of the death toll from these netherworld nuisances, they simply should not be allowed.
The fact is, the vast majority of people who build ghost guns are hobbyists or firearms enthusiasts who want to build their own guns so they are customized to their liking or for the satisfaction of making something with their own hands, and who perhaps don't want to deal with the government's paperwork. This is why, though at times they may, such occult objects don't turn up at the majority of crime scenes. The people willing to put in the time, money, and effort to make their own firearms aren't going to throw their lives away committing crimes. It is far more likely that if a gun recovered at a crime scene doesn't have a discernible serial number, it is because the serial number was scraped or ground off. Though mister Biden claims that, “These guns are weapons of choice for many criminals,” most criminals won't spend time building a gun. The firearms used in the vast majority of mass shootings in the U.S. have been obtained legally after passing a background check. Criminals have little regard for the law - this is why they are criminals. If they can't purchase weapons legally, they will buy them illegally, or they will simply steal them. It is far easier and less expensive for most to obtain a gun illegally than to build one. Likewise, removing the serial number from a firearm takes far less time and effort than building a ghost gun, if the criminal even feels it necessary to remove the serial number. Which is a criminal more likely to do: spend $500 and an hour of labor making his own firearm, or spend less than $100 on a stolen firearm and 5 minutes removing the serial number?
This brings us to our final point. Serial numbers don't help solve crimes. If a gun is stolen, the serial number will not lead you to the criminal. If the gun was sold privately between two individuals (which, in many places, means no government paperwork is required, just as with building “ghost guns”), the serial number will not lead you to the current owner. If the serial number is scratched off, it will lead you nowhere. The only reason for wanting guns serialized and registered is for the government to track who is purchasing them, and that would ostensibly be in order to know from whom they may need to be confiscated. Going after "ghost guns" is not about stopping crime - it's about trying to put an end to any potential resistance as the left continues to trot out their tyrannies.
I like vigilant fox’s quote “you can’t have tyranny without compliance”.