The Supreme Court docket agreed on Monday to listen to a problem to the Biden administration’s regulation of “ghost weapons” — kits that may be purchased on-line and assembled into untraceable home made firearms.
In defending the rule, a important a part of President Biden’s broader effort to deal with gun violence, administration officers mentioned such weapons had soared in reputation in recent times, significantly amongst criminals barred from shopping for extraordinary weapons.
The regulation, issued in 2022 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, broadened the bureau’s interpretation of the definition of “firearm” within the Gun Management Act of 1968.
The brand new regulation didn’t ban the sale or possession of kits and elements that may be assembled to make weapons, however it did require producers and sellers to acquire licenses, mark their merchandise with serial numbers and conduct background checks.
Gun house owners, advocacy teams and corporations that make or distribute the kits and elements sued to problem the rules, saying that they weren’t approved by the 1968 regulation, which outlined firearms to incorporate weapons that “could readily be transformed to expel a projectile by the motion of an explosive” and “the body or receiver of any such weapon.”
Judge Reed O’Connor, of the Federal District Court docket for the Northern District of Texas, sided with the challengers and struck down the regulation in July, saying that “a weapon components package isn’t a firearm” and “that which can turn into or could also be transformed to a useful receiver isn’t itself a receiver.”
We’re having bother retrieving the article content material.
Please allow JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thanks to your persistence whereas we confirm entry. If you’re in Reader mode please exit and log into your Occasions account, or subscribe for all of The Occasions.
Thanks to your persistence whereas we confirm entry.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Need all of The Occasions? Subscribe.
