Homemade & Virtually Untraceable: The Rise of Ghost Guns

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, in Madison, Wisconsin, families are reeling from that deadly school shooting which killed three people after a 15-year-old female student opened fire there on Monday. It’s the latest tragic example of gun violence in America and it comes as another worrying issue is on the rise, the use of so-called ghost guns, homemade firearms without serial numbers that can’t be traced. The New York Police Department is investigating the possibility of one of those being used in the recent murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. Our next guest is an expert on this topic. Kris Brown is president of the nonprofit organization Brady United Against Gun Violence. And she’s joining Hari Sreenivasan to lay out her argument for balancing Second Amendment rights with gun reform.

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HARI SREENIVASAN, INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Kris Brown, thanks so much for joining us. Earlier this month, we had a fatal shooting in New York City that caught national attention because the UnitedHealthcare CEO was gunned down with a ghost gun. And just to kind of set the table, for people who might not know what these are, what’s so different about them?

KRIS BROWN, PRESIDENT, BRADY UNITED AGAINST GUN VIOLENCE: Ghost guns are parts of guns that are on serialized and untraceable. Before the Biden administration acted most recently, they had been sold in kits with no background check at all. And just to give you a sense of what that means. It’s like buying something from Ikea, except easier. So, there were folks who are buying these kits, no background check, and putting together a fully finished firearm in less than one minute. These kits have proliferated across the country until President Biden just recently required background checks for these kinds of ghost guns.

SREENIVASAN: So, most guns that you go to a store, a department store, a gun store and buy, they all come with a serial number that’s engraved. That’s something that all gun manufacturers have agreed on if they want to sell weapons in the United States, right?

BROWN: That’s exactly correct. It’s part of the 1968 Gun Control Act, the federal law that established the serialization of firearms across the country and established that a license is required from a licensed dealer in order to sell a firearm.

SREENIVASAN: So, if these guns, the ghost guns, do not require a serial number, then there is essentially no way to trace where the provenance of how that gun got into the hands of perhaps the criminal. Now, is there, you know, some legal notion that, look, we had guns in this country before 1968, before serial numbers were acquired, and that is part of our Second Amendment right?

BROWN: 100 percent. Yes, you’re hitting on exactly really the issue. Look, the way we think about a ghost gun as a ghost gun is a future crime gun because that’s what’s happening with these guns. These unserialized guns. In Baltimore, for example, six years ago, there were eight ghost guns recovered. Two years ago, there were 538. So, we’ve seen a proliferation of these guns used in crime. And absolutely what the Biden administration said to ATF three years ago is, look at the definition of firearm from 1934 through 1968. Yes, it says a finished firearm. But if someone can buy a ghost gun in a kit and put together a fully finished firearm in less than a minute, then that kit needs to be regulated just like a regular firearm and it needs to be serialized. And that’s what the Biden administration rule said that’s being litigated and it’s before the Supreme Court right now.

SREENIVASAN: And what were those arguments in front of the Supreme Court like? I mean, where — you know, I know the sort of tea leaf for you but —

BROWN: Yes.

SREENIVASAN: — what is the court likely to do about this?

BROWN: Well, it was interesting, right? The Supreme Court has decided a lot of gun cases recently, and not all of them to our liking in terms of putting safety first and endorsing what we view as appropriate regulation consistent with the Second Amendment. But if you’re reading tea leaves and you look at some of the questions that were asked, even by the more conservative judges, what you see is a real skepticism of the arguments from those who are pushing, overturning the rule. Their strongest argument seems to be that hobbyists buy these kits and they like assembling firearms and that there’s always been a right to assemble your own firearm. Blacksmiths did it in colonial America and individuals have a Second Amendment right to pursue these kinds of hobbies. It didn’t seem that any of the justices really felt strongly about that argument when you weigh it against the number of people being killed with these ghost guns across the country.

SREENIVASAN: So, is there kind of any kind of a place now where there is a restriction on your ability to print these things in the first place? Because the parts for these guns can come from 3D printers that are — you know, they’re — those are not illegal.

BROWN: No, it’s a really good point, right? Because some of the reporting about this particular shooter in New York indicates that he printed at least parts of this firearm from 3D print blueprints that were available online. Now, technically, those blueprints are only supposed to be accessed if you have a special license through the Department of Commerce. However, during the first Trump administration, an individual made these blueprints available online. We, Brady, sought to enjoin those blueprints from spreading all across the United States easily, that was litigated, and the Trump administration abandoned, allowing these blueprints to proliferate. But it’s very easy for that to happen as we see. And so, these blueprints obviously are available to certain people who are industrious and try to circumvent the law. And that’s why Brady strongly supports legislation pending in Congress. It has been pending for several years to ensure that these blue — these 3D blueprints are not publicly available. It’s very dangerous to the extent that they are.

SREENIVASAN: That seems like the most Sisyphean task you’re describing so far. I mean, you’re literally trying to say how to keep blueprints out of — off the internet. I mean, how do you do that? I mean, because then you kind of bump into the kind of First Amendment as well. And say, well, look, this is information. I mean, we have horrible manuals. We have horrible kinds of pieces of information that exist online. I should be able to find that, or I should be able to publish that if that’s the case. What’s — you know, how do you try to thread the needle on this where you don’t want to file of both the First and the Second Amendments?

BROWN: Well, look, there are basic philosophies about the system of government that we want in the United States. And certainly, the Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, as you’re noting, so is the First, right? And there’s something about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that are overarching rights that give life to all of these other rights. We don’t want a Second Amendment that swallows every other right we Americans hold dear. And part of this is understood through every weighing of rights in the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment itself. I can’t go to the theater and yell, fire, right? That’s long been understood. So, we have to balance rights and ease of technology and ease of use, all of these benefits with the real social harms that can come with certain aspects of this technology. And certainly, this is not a unique issue where we would say that balance in the public interest should be not proliferating 3D printing of firearm parts.

SREENIVASAN: The rule from the Biden administration, of the ATF is, you know, currently enforcing in front of the Supreme Court. Does that go far enough?

BROWN: No, it went as far —

SREENIVASAN: What is that?

BROWN: So, let me explain what the rule did. The rule said that ghost gun kits have to be subject to a background check because obviously what we were seeing is huge numbers of these unserialized kits, guns showing up on crime scenes. Why is that? Because if you can’t pass a background check, what are you going to do? You’re going to buy a kit and assemble a gun in a few minutes, and even make money off of doing that. So, they said it has to be subject to a background check, and the kits have to be serialized. So, if they show up in a crime, the law enforcement can do its job. What it didn’t do is require a license in order to purchase one of these kits and ensure that there’s no secondary market for these ghost gun kits in that process, right? So, basically make it so that they are fully regulated. That didn’t happen because Joe Biden was pulling a thread through a very small needle. His authority in order to do this was found not in new law, but in the 1968 Gun Control Act. Congress needs to get with the program and realize 50 years have passed, right, and pass legislation to ensure ATF has full authority to regulate this market. Only then can we be sure that we have a fully functioning system. Which, by the way, we just finished a poll. 80 percent of all Americans. believe we need a stronger background check system and these ghost guns are a part of that.

SREENIVASAN: Do we have any idea how many of these types of weapons exist today? Because if it’s not serialized, if it doesn’t go through kind of our proper sales channels, so to speak, and if they can be printed in parts around the country or the world, how do we get a handle on how many there are?

BROWN: It’s very, very hard. It’s not easy to answer that question. What we do know is we’ve seen a huge spike, not just in the Baltimore example, in every city across this country. We’ve seen huge spikes up until this year when the ghost gun rule went into effect, where we saw some of these numbers of ghost gun recoveries be cut in half. So, the rule is working. But just to give you a sense of scope and scale, four years ago in California, I think it was four or five years ago, 40 percent, 4-0, 40 percent of all guns recovered in crime in the State of California were ghost guns. Unfortunately, we don’t have the information because this is really a black market for firearms in this country about the scope, but that gives you some sense of proportionality and the explosion of these firearms without appropriate regulation.

SREENIVASAN: I would suspect, and correct me if I’m wrong, that, you know, gun enthusiasts, law abiding gun owners would be against ghost guns as well.

BROWN: Generally speaking, for those — and I will tell you, especially those in law enforcement, they are absolutely opposed to ghost guns. We have many cases, Brady litigates on behalf of victims of gun violence, we represent both civilians and law enforcement who have been gunned down with these types of firearms. So, yes, it’s a very, very small percentage of the population that actually believes that there is a Second Amendment right to access ghost guns and that there should be no regulation. Almost no one believes that. And that includes Trump voters by the way. Based on the polling that we have, over 70 percent of Trump voters want more regulations around firearms. He was not elected with a mandate to strip or reverse these kinds of public safety laws.

SREENIVASAN: Earlier this year, President Trump vowed to undo any effort that President Biden made when it came to gun restrictions. How would you advise the incoming president?

BROWN: Well, look, what I saw in — on the campaign trail when I watched President Trump speak, and certainly, if I look back on some of the statements he made in his first term as president, what he’s really communicating is a desire to ensure that there is easy access to firearms, appropriately regulated, though, and he’s often talked about that, so that people can exercise their Second Amendment rights. I never heard President Trump say that he should — we should make it easier for criminals to access firearms or firearm parts. And that’s what he would be doing if he overturns these regulations that President Biden has put into effect that are actually denying criminals across this country easy access to unregulated, unserialized firearms. So, I think it’s a pretty straightforward both policy proposition, political proposition and one that Americans across this country really believe in. They want a system that works, that’s effective, and we’ve gone a long way to helping make that happen.

SREENIVASAN: Oftentimes, when there are policies that roll out, there’s a kind of legislative approach, there’s the judicial approach, and then there’s the old-fashioned kind of lobbying that happens from groups. Where are gun manufacturers in this conversation about ghost guns?

BROWN: That’s a really interesting question. So, legacy manufacturers behind the scenes at least indicate to us that they’re not supportive of ghost guns, because obviously, and you’re hitting your finger on an issue, it impacts their market for firearms, right?

SREENIVASAN: Right.

BROWN: But some of the legacy manufacturers have also gotten into the ghost gun space, right, and are either helping to finance or helping proliferate some of these kits that were made available. Now, a lot of them, frankly, have moved on to other things with the Biden rule because we have shut down, Brady has litigated a case. I talked about Baltimore and the proliferation of firearms. We shut down one of the major ghost gun dealers, Polymer80, that was supplying the vast majority of the guns recovered in Baltimore. So, I think for the most part, they’re not vocal on this, but they too, the legacy manufacturers, would support the legal market for firearms, not the illegal market for firearms.

SREENIVASAN: Brady has been working for literally decades now on this topic and this issue, and, you know, I hosted a conversation after the Sandy Hook massacre, including at the time, Vice President Biden. And we thought, I think collectively, the country thought, if there was going to be change, the death of 20 children and six adults would do it, right? But I wonder, do you see any kind of hope of structural change happening either in the halls of Congress or in any other way where we can get towards more sort of more sensible reforms that the majority of the country in polling seems to indicate support for?

BROWN: Yes, I do see hope for it. I mean, I have an emotional response as a mom. That’s why I’m in this fight because I believe that we as Americans are entitled to be able to walk down the street, to drop our kids at school and not be afraid that they’ll be shot. That seems like a pretty fundamental thing to me. But I do want to note after the agony of Sandy Hook, it took way longer than it should have, but President Biden did sign one of the most dramatic federal laws to protect lives, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, that was just three years ago, right? And that was bipartisan. More than 15 Republicans in the United States Senate said yes to expanded background checks to ensure that there’s federal funding for extreme risk protection laws, to ensure that there’s federal funding for community violence intervention, because black and brown communities across this country are hugely, disparately impacted by gun violence. So, we have made a lot of progress here, but there’s much, much more to do because guns, sadly in America today, are the number one killer of our kids. So, it’s not just what’s the one thing that needs to be done, there are many things that can be done. And we can get them done and should get them done because Americans across this country believe in these kinds of very common-sense things, including a very basic expansion of the Brady Law, right? That needs to happen.

SREENIVASAN: Kris Brown from the Brady United Against Gun Violence, thanks so much for joining us.

BROWN: Thank you for having me.