New guidance from the Biden administration requires pistol parts to be subject to the same regulations as fully finished firearms.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is closing a major loophole in a new federal rule intended to regulate the sale of pistol parts that can readily be turned into untraceable homemade firearms, in an aggressive expansion of its crackdown on so-called ghost guns.
On Tuesday, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives directed vendors who sell partially finished frames of Glock-style handguns — the pistol grip and firing mechanism — to treat them like fully completed firearms, which are subject to federal regulations. The move, outlined in an open letter to federally licensed gun dealers, requires sellers to mark the parts with serial numbers, and for buyers to undergo criminal background checks.
The guidance could severely restrict the sale of unregulated and untraceable “80 percent” frames and receivers that have been linked to thousands of crimes, a top goal of the gun control movement. Such parts only require simple alterations to become operational.
The move, should it survive likely legal challenges from gun rights groups, would be among the most significant executive actions President Biden has taken to fulfill his campaign promise to stem the scourge of handgun violence, an effort highlighted by the passage of a bipartisan gun deal in June.
In August, Mr. Biden announced final approval of a new federal rule on ghost guns that imposed those requirements on ready-made kits, which include all the parts needed to assemble a workable firearm in under an hour.
But federal officials told The New York Times earlier this month that the leadership of A.T.F. had done little to stop retailers from continuing to sell the unfinished, unregulated frames, outside of the kits.
A.T.F. officials said that they had been simply weighing various legal approaches before issuing their guidance on handguns. But they were also clearly under pressure to toughen the policy, and have spent the past few weeks working on the new guidance in conjunction with senior lawyers at the Justice Department and White House officials, according to three administration officials familiar with the situation.
Under the new guidance, vendors and manufacturers who fail to comply with the technical requirements outlined in the letter would face penalties ranging from the possible loss of their federal licenses to criminal prosecution.
Dozens of online retailers, adopting the narrowest possible interpretation of the rule, have been selling core components used to make ghost guns, according to research by Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control advocacy group founded by Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City.
Gun safety groups, which had pressured Steven M. Dettelbach, the A.T.F.’s new director, to act more decisively, said the letter represented a major step in addressing the growing problem of ghost guns, which have contributed to increases in violent crime, especially on the West Coast, in recent years.
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“A.T.F. listened to the calls for meaningful enforcement of President Biden’s muscular ghost gun rules to stem the tide of these deadly weapons into our communities,” said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown. “We applaud the guidance today proving that A.T.F. won’t allow the gun industry to subvert our nation’s laws.”
Yet the move, which the Justice Department described as a clarification of the regulation, is not without risk. Because the rule was created through executive action, rather than a statute validated by Congress, it has given companies confidence that they can keep selling individual gun parts.
Administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss possible litigation, said the new guidance would almost certainly be challenged in federal court on the grounds that it violates the Gun Control Act of 1968, which allows people to build firearms for their personal use without submitting to background checks or applying serial numbers.
The guidance will only serve “to further confuse the industry as to when an unfinished, incomplete item is a ‘frame’ or ‘receiver’ — and thus regulated,” said Larry Keane, a top official with the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group.
Some liberal-leaning states have passed their own laws to regulate ghost guns after a series of mass shootings involving them. At least 10 states have done so, and a handful of cities, including New York, Washington and Los Angeles, have sued ghost gun manufacturers over attacks carried out using such weapons.
But the gun lobby strongly opposed the new federal rule, and several conservative legal groups have already challenged it.
In August, 17 states and a coalition of gun rights activists sued the Biden administration in federal court in North Dakota. That suit was rejected, but a lawsuit in a federal court in Texas remained unresolved after a judge issued a temporary restraining order against the rule’s implementation.
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December 28, 2022 at 07:08AM
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A.T.F. Moves to Close ‘Ghost Guns’ Loophole in Federal Rule - The New York Times
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