Editorial: 'Ghost gun' in CEO's murder highlights an industry custom-made for crime

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Dec 13, 2024

Published in Op Eds

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The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan has spotlighted the fury that many Americans feel toward the nation’s dysfunctional health insurance system.

It has also tapped a profane undercurrent in national discourse today that makes otherwise rational people think it’s acceptable to express such fury with dehumanizing jokes and memes about the violent taking of a life.

What isn’t getting enough attention, but should, is the alleged instrument of that violence.

Murder suspect Luigi Mangione was arrested in Pennsylvania carrying a “ghost gun” that authorities believe was the murder weapon. It’s part of a burgeoning industry of untraceable weapons that Congress should have cracked down on years ago — but that, thanks to congressional paralysis on any issue addressing gun violence, might soon enjoy expanded federal protection.

America’s federal gun laws are woefully inadequate, as proven by our worst-in-the-advanced-world firearms death rates, but there are some current restrictions that help.

Firearms manufacturers are required to stamp each new gun with a serial number. Acquisition and transfer records are required when the weapon is sold and resold. Criminal background checks are required for any gun purchase made through a federally licensed dealer. All of it is designed to both prevent gun violence and to aid police in tracking down perpetrators of violence when it happens.

“Ghost guns” are guns assembled by buyers from mail-order kits and/or 3D-printer plans instead of being sold as fully functioning weapons. The only logical reason for this roundabout process is to make it easier for people who aren’t supposed to have weapons to get them — and to make it harder for police to trace them when they’re used in crimes.

Common sense dictates that, regardless of how a gun came into being, federal requirements regarding serial numbers and the rest should still apply. A gun assembled at home can be used to kill with just as much finality as one bought in a gun shop.

Yet because of the gun lobby's hold over American politics, the legal status of ghost guns today remains in limbo.

Congress, at the gun lobby’s bidding, has refused to specify in federal law that ghost guns must come under the same restrictions as other guns. The Biden administration responded with administrative rules that require manufacturers of ghost gun components to adhere to the same regulations as firearms manufacturers, including stamping the parts with serial numbers and keeping relevant sales records.

Opponents sued to overturn those restrictions, arguing that gun kits aren’t guns — never mind that they can be assembled by buyers into functioning weapons in as little as 30 minutes. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case (Garland v. VanDerStok) in October; its opinion is pending.

But the incoming Trump administration could render the case moot. During President Donald Trump’s first term, he loosened federal regulations on 3D-printer technology related to ghost guns and sided with the gun lobby on most issues. Trump could summarily rescind the Biden administration’s ghost-gun restrictions upon retaking office.

All indications are that his fellow Republicans who will control both chambers of Congress would back such a move. Congressional Republicans have consistently supported a hands-off approach to an industry that exists for literally no reason but to hamper law enforcement in criminal investigations.

More and more criminals are figuring that out. The number of ghost guns recovered at crime scenes has exploded 10-fold in just the past five years, from under 1,800 in 2016 to more than 19,000 in 2021, according to data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

While the assassin could just as easily have killed Thompson with a standard-issue handgun, the fact that it was apparently a ghost gun could conceivably complicate the case against Mangione.

Police say the ghost gun found on Mangione is “consistent” with the type of gun used in the killing. But that doesn’t provide the solid link they might be able to establish if they could work with a serial number, manufacturing records, background checks and other law enforcement tools that, by intentional design, are not available for ghost guns.

In other words, the fact that Mangione allegedly used such a gun to carry out the murder could in theory make it more difficult to prosecute him. If so, will Republicans continue to shield the unrestricted proliferation of this made-for-crime industry from even the minimum firearms standards currently on the books?

It's not a rhetorical question. By failing to pass commonsense legislation stamping ghost-gun restrictions into federal law, Congress aids the criminals who are aided by this niche of the firearms industry. Remember that the next time some gun-lobby politician waxes on about supporting "law and order."

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