President Joe Biden’s regulation targeting so-called ghost guns, or firearms assembled at home from unregistered components, targets a problem that Democrats have characterized as an urgent threat to public safety.
But ghost guns account for relatively few of the illegal guns police are encountering on the streets, even as law enforcement experts say they are seeing the weapons more frequently now than in recent years.
In Philadelphia, ghost guns accounted for just 9% of guns recovered by police in 2021.
PAIR OF GUN CONTROL MOVES BY WHITE HOUSE DRAWS IRE OF GOP
In New York City, police confiscated more than 6,000 illegal guns last year, and only about 200 of them were ghost guns.
During the first 11 months of 2021, police officers in Chicago recovered 8,854 guns — just 455 of those were ghost guns.
Law enforcement officers recovered fewer than 23,000 ghost guns in total across the country from 2016 to 2020.
Biden’s regulatory action on ghost guns changes the definition of a firearm to contain some of the parts necessary to assemble firearms at home, including frames and receivers in the definition.
The change would require frames and receivers, key parts of ghost guns, to be treated like firearms under the law, meaning customers who purchase them must submit to background checks like those who purchase regular guns.
Manufacturers will be required to add serial numbers to the components as well.
Biden has faced pressure from liberal activists to crack down on guns as polls show voters are increasingly concerned about crime.
Some Democrats have sought to frame the nationwide spike in violence as a product of gun proliferation, floating stricter gun laws as the answer to the national increase in crime.
However, Republicans have blamed the uptick on public safety policies in Democrat-run cities. They’ve argued liberal priorities such as ending cash bail, shortening prison sentences, and limiting police activity have contributed to growing violence in virtually every major city.
Jessica Anderson, executive director at the conservative Heritage Action group, said the ghost gun regulation won’t solve the problems driving increased crime.
“Crime continues to skyrocket in many cities across the country as a direct result of the Defund the Police movement and weak sentencing at the hands of left-wing, rogue prosecutors,” Anderson said in a statement. “Biden attacking so-called ‘ghost guns’ will only make our communities worse off.”
Anderson warned that the new rule could lead to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives broadening “their definition of a firearm” and therefore subjecting “many law-abiding firearm owners to more burdensome regulations and duplicative background checks.”
Biden said during an event in the Rose Garden on Monday that he pursued regulatory action on ghost guns after trying unsuccessfully to shepherd legislation through Congress last year.
He characterized opponents of the regulation as “extreme,” claiming the rule would keep guns out of the hands of people who can’t pass a background check.
Some Republicans pushed back, not just on the substance of Biden’s rule, but on his decision to pursue limits on self-assembled firearms without input from Congress.
“The Constitution does not authorize the federal government to prevent you from making your own firearm,” Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, said on Sunday.
