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by mediumdeviation 976 days ago
While I don't think the legislation make sense, I don't think it's not a problem. Here's some statistics:

> Last year, police departments seized at least 25,785 ghost guns nationwide, the Justice Department said recently, and those are just the weapons submitted by police to ATF for tracing, even though they don’t have serial numbers and largely cannot be traced.

> In 2021, the number of guns recovered was 19,344, meaning seizures rose 33 percent the following year. ATF has linked ghost guns to 692 homicides and nonfatal shootings through 2021, including mass killings and school shootings.

- https://wapo.st/3tA4F39

> The report found that annual law enforcement seizures of guns without serial numbers [in California] have risen 16-fold over the last decade, going from fewer than 1,300 in the early 2010s to more than 20,000 in both 2021 and 2022. The rise in ghost guns has happened alongside a pandemic-era surge in gun violence in California and the nation as a whole.

- https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/california-ghost-g...

4 comments

Ghostguns meant mostly-home-made a few years ago.Typified by 3d printed guns.

Recently (last 3 years) there has been an attempt at redefinition to include 80% guns (80% of work completed before purchase, end user does >60 min of work to complete it) and normal guns with their SN removed.

So now when someone quotes ghostgun numbers, they're mostly talking about normal guns with SN's removed.

I don't think anyone would really draw a distinction between these two cases as it applies to 3d printers. If the argument is that a tool is now on the market that made what used to be a high-effort activity into a low-effort one where you can now with some YT videos make less traceable guns then honestly, it kinda sucks in a ruining it for the class kinda way, but it actually seems somewhat reasonable to regulate them like firearms. If only so that the police know what doors to knock on if such a gun turns up.
A ghost gun does not mean 3d printed.

It's just any gun without a serial number.

At least where I live, the vast majority "ghost guns" that are getting used for crimes are polymer80 glocks that can be built with just a drill, no 3d printing required.
The majority of ghost gun crime arrests and charges that I’ve seen in various local and nationwide news articles are still polymer80 frames and 80% ar-type lowers, vs. printed frames. I’d estimate only about 10% or less involved printing but is creeping up with p80 taking heat and printing becoming more ubiquitous.
Not all ghost guns are 3D printed. There is a possibility that not a single one of those guns were 3D printed.