California High School Shooting
Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies stage outside following a shooting at Saugus High School, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019, in Santa Clarita, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, backed by the Giffords Law Center, filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to force it to regulate the sales of 80% firearms. Two named plaintiffs in the lawsuit are fathers of students killed in the 2019 shooting at Saugus High School. The suit asks for a court order overruling the ATF’s opinion on unregulated sales of 80% lowers and frames.

“If you can assemble Ikea furniture you can probably assemble a ghost gun. And you can probably do it faster,” said Hannah Shearer, litigation director of the nonprofit legal organization Giffords Law Center.

Shearer, who is co-counsel in the lawsuit, said state gun laws have been undermined by the ATF’s refusal to treat the parts used to build homemade guns as firearms. This allows “unscrupulous” DIY firearm sellers to flood the gun market.

“The ATF has specifically exempted them from the federal definition of a firearm, meaning federal gun laws don’t apply to them. As a result, people can order and build these guns without passing background check or even verifying their age,” she said. “This has opened the biggest loophole you can imagine in our federal and state gun laws.”

– Maria Dinzeo in California Sues Feds Over Refusal to Crack Down on ‘Ghost Guns’

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107 COMMENTS

  1. Second Amendment – Shall not be Infringed

    If you want to build your own gun, that is Constitutional. End of story! Perhaps government can reasonably regulate sales of commercially available weapons, but they cannot keep any American Citizen from building and possessing a gun they built themselves!

      • Hear Ye Hear Ye All You DIY Peasants…On Your Knees For A Message From The King…Due to a crime committed in a distant land that you peasants had nothing to do with It Is By Order of The King…You Are Forbidden From Buying, Building Or Possessing Ghost Guns.
        Should the King’s Men find you with a Ghost Gun you will receive 50 Lashes and Spend 5 years in the dungeon eating molded roach infested bread and and drinking the urine of your dungeon mates and dungeon guards.
        Your Merciful King gives you 3 strikes from the clock tower to turn in your Ghost Guns or face the aforementioned punishment. The decision of the King is final and in accordance with the King’s Law. Long Live The King!!! You may stand.

        • I got a job for you if you’re interested….. I won’t say much here but it involves a lot of liquidation. Talk to my people….. they’re setting up a hair appointment for me right now, but they’ll be free in a few to discuss details.

          Eric Swalwell 2020

      • It isn’t if I say it isn’t and you don’t do anything about it…. It isn’t if I say it isn’t and the court disagrees and I ignore what the court says and nobody does anything about it and the cops go along with it.

        Eric Swalwell 2020

      • I think they are referring to the sellers of the 80% kits, frames, receivers, or flats.

        But once made it is for your own personal use.

      • In Florida you CAN sell a homemade gun, you just can’t build it for the sole purpose of selling it, you must keep it AND use it for a reasonable period of time, the gun must also have a “serial” number added and the ID of the buyer must be confirmed by the seller though no background check is required for private sales…

    • I’ve assembled Ikea furniture in the past. The difficulty in assembly was why we stopped buying from them even before they went anti gun.

      • It’s a tradition with IKEA to have a tricky undocumented step or require an exotic tool during at least once during the assembly.

  4. If we get Biden and they hold the house and senate, kiss 80 percent firearms good-bye.

    And internet sales of firearms and ammunition. And likely a whole lot more…

    • Geaoff, I disagree. It will just mean the country will exponentially increase it’s criminal population by those who choose to disregard any new enacted laws or amendments. Then, everything is “off the table”, including suppressors and full auto…in for a penny, in for a pound. All this will be natural (un)intended consequences.

    • I’m going to have to disagree with this. I think clearing such laws through the Supreme Court would be a bust even without Barrett.

      The political capital involved with passing a law banning even 10% of firearms, stacking the courts to uphold the law, and then sending LE door to door in a single presidency would doom a political party to oblivion.

        • I don’t think it’ll just be the 2A community up in arms about a stacked SC coupled with a mandatory buyback and a future door to door from LE for non compliance. I think that between 2/3rds and 4/5ths of America would be done with it.

        • Stop whining and get out and vote. Even if you don’t win you’ve let the incumbent know there is opposition and they can’t take the people for granted.

      • Timothy, I think it would doom them to a lot worse than oblivion. And any door-to-door absolutely MUST have a comprehensive registry first, searching EVERY home will not be tolerated for 10 seconds. That is why every gun control proposal for 50 years has had a registry as the actual goal.

      • ” I think clearing such laws through the Supreme Court would be a bust even without Barrett.”

        Until the SCOTUS strikes it down, it will be illegal, and you can be convicted and sentenced to prison.

        A little ‘Inconvenient Truth’ for you…

        • True.
          But the most dangerous person is the one that has nothing to lose, and especially a disenfranchised group (=mob). And we’re on the precipice of of whole bunch of us not having much left to lose, and far fewer with patience IMO.

        • A law having time before the SC strikes it down isn’t something new. It’s a terrible thing for anyone getting harassed in such a fashion to have to defend themselves in court and go through the humiliation of being arrested.

          My point wasn’t that there would be zero harm to the country from such an action. My point was that there would be such tremendous harm to the party that implemented it that I don’t think Biden can get enough Dems on board.

        • I think the real question is what happens next in such a situation or if such a situation ever comes to pass.

          The SCOTUS is not immune to political considerations and has, in the past, handed the POTUS a win due to such considerations.

          While I think that a court packing scheme is political suicide, and polling supports this, such an assumption is predicated on the idea that the rest of us get a say. In a situation where the current iteration of the Democratic Party is in charge of both chambers on Congress and the White House I’m not completely sure they wouldn’t entirely drop the pretenses and not simply take over the country via the judiciary.

          Pack the court with complete aparatchiks and now the SCOTUS functions like other Banana Republic courts, as a rubber stamp. Suddenly nothing *they* do is illegal.

          I’m not saying that will happen but there certainly are some fringe people (on both sides honestly) who would love such a situation provided that it was themselves running the show.

    • Hold onto your currently owned guns, and don’t waste ammo until we win. They can’t do a lot of shit they dream up, and gun confiscation is one of those things.

      • They can’t do a lot of shit they dream up, and gun confiscation is one of those things.

        Which will end up in a flame out in SCOTUS with a 5/3 plus an inconsequential Roberts “swing” vote…

  5. Contrary to the comment/complaint made by Ms. Shearer, assembling a “ghost gun” is not at all like assembling “Ikea furniture”. Ikea doesn’t sell their tables with main component at only 80% completion and requiring milling, drilling, and sanding before you can put it all together.

    Where’s our own pro-2A “money whale”? Where’s the conservative billionaire who’s willing to put large amounts of money into Internet ads and political candidates to fill offices with statesmen who will follow the Constitution?

    • Politicians prefer unarmed peasants, as is said. But they can’t always get what they prefer. I’m going to start buying lotto tickets and if I win the Super Duper Hog Buster Lotto I’m going to be the conservative, Pro 2A sugar daddy. Maybe not a billionaire, but I’ll plunk down a lot.

  6. People can do things!
    I’m scared!
    Ban everything!
    Nobody tell them about the shovel AK or the melted pop-can AR.

  7. “If you can assemble Ikea furniture you can probably assemble a ghost gun. And you can probably do it faster”

    LOL the dumb SOB says that like it’s a bad thing……………

    • If you can cook up meth in a pop bottle, you can probably assemble a ghost gun.

      I smell a new cottage industry for the criminal element in Americas rural heartland.

      • Assembling an AR-15 is no big deal. Milling out a trigger well take more machinery than the pop bottle and stove required for meth.

        Also, pretty sure that home manufacture of firearms isn’t some brand new thing.

      • You’ve been smelling too much meth if you think this is anything new. There has been a cottage illegal gun industry as long as there have been gun laws…. soooo you’re about 1000 years behind on your bright ideas there Miner49.

        • And cottage legal gun industries. Most of the advancements over the centuries have been made by people doing it for fun and profit.

      • Are you speaking from experience?

        Progressives like to promote drug legalization because a stoned docile population is easier to control.

  8. Defund the police Hell yeah! Lockdowns and no jobs for small businesses. Heres the deal COVID mask crap I’m supporting AOC and Omar’s dream of an America ruled by sharia law. Defending Obama’s legacy with continued it’s all about the gay agenda. ISIS, Urkaine, Made in China dominance. CHAZ, CHOP, Antifa, BLM and fake racism crap, I love communism and sniffing little girls hair. No manufacturing jobs, no energy independence who needs gasoline for war? No 2 amendment Jill and I will cry when you die! No freedom of speech silence culture IS coming for your jobs SO dont disagree with me, it will only piss me off. Mandatory Worship and training for LGBT on Sundays or be fired from your job on Monday. Mandatory Transgender story hour for fetuses who survive. No freedom of religion unless your a Muslim. I will succeed with blaming others for all the failures of my do nothing administration. Trump will go to jail for COVID. (When obviously ha ha it came from China and hes a xenophobic of Chinese viruses.) I am presently hard at work figuring how to speak with my ear device for my next debate. Also working with the defecating approving pedophile loving demonic hollyweird Democrats and MSM to control and slowly destroy America which is what people really want. Please vote for the 47 year useless record of me Joe Biden. And please Make Hunter Bidens Income great again. MHBIGA forever!

  9. They want the ATF to regulate… things that aren’t firearms – as firearms.

    Ok, buddy, let me explain to you how fabrication and manufacturing work: you take some things, such are themselves not some other thing, and you use them to make that other thing.

    Now, the fact the first things were made into the second thing does not mean they were somehow always that thing. It simply means that fabrication and manufacturing are real.

    • I was about to say something similar, you beat me to it! You can’t regulate a piece of bar stock as a gun part or a spring as a firearm part, because there are multiple end uses. The red tape that would be put on other industries as a result of legislation like this would be unworkable and unenforceable. You would need a license to buy bar-stock…

      • They are not worried about “side effects” of their laws like that. It would be a feature to help them control every manufacturing company.

        Their real goal is to make America into Venezuela or more likely Cambodia. Read that history when communists took over the country.

        Be Prepared !!!

        • They have their instruction manual. It is called the history of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.

          Get ready to “voluntarily” return your property to the “people” and publicly apologizing for your privilege and begging for atonement through labor for the people. In reality you will be executed just after the recording is finished.

    • And if for some reason we see an unfavorable decision declaring 80% receivers as “firearms” (which won’t happen, but for sake of argument…), then as many have already noted, the industry will simply move the goal posts back to the new line drawn in the sand and make 75% complete receivers that will require one additional step. Jig manufacturers will sell updated equipment and life will go on.

      At some point, the absurdity of all this will become clear even to anti-gunners when some attempt to define 50% as the line which will literally be (by definition) as close to a blank block of metal as to a finished receiver.

  11. This is a dangerous case for the esteemed AG. There are already legal problems with the way the ATF defines a firearm as related to AR’s. This could blow up in his face.

    • California is on the legal offensive (both meanings of the word apply) right now and it’s going to take decades to roll back the crap that the legislature is passing. It’s creating a buffer in the appeals courts and buying time so people will grow used to the meat-and-potatoes social engineering laws at the core of California politics. Once the social engineering has become the norm, then people won’t care about the laws that get repealed by the courts…… Californians can have their 30 round magazines and ammo sales back, but what guns are you going to load those magazines in to and fire those rounds? Where are you going to buy those expensive micro stamping smart guns, ammo, and mags? Where are you going to shoot?

  12. Cite an example of a ghost gun being used in a crime!

    In Charlotte, NC last year of the over 108 firearm killings, 13 were by people who had been previously arrested for carrying a firearm illegally. They were released so they could kill someone else. Maybe they should concentrate on young black men killing each other.

    BLM has been co-opted.

    And I owe my life to a black sergeant!

    • I think there’s probably been one…somewhere.

      Anyway, it doesn’t matter. These ghost guns are the scariest of all scary guns, don’t you know, and the progressive Democrats of California are the only ones who care enough to keep this fearful scourge at bay. That’s all you need to know.

      Also… #BlackLivesMatter #MoreThanYours #TheyWillDoOurDirtyWork

  13. Good. With Justice Barrett seated, we can settle this one once and for all. Be careful what you wish for Commiefornia!

    • She’ll probably be dead by the time SCOTUS gets around to hearing any of these cases. SCOTUS also set a precedent by dismissing that New York City case when the city repealed the law at the last minute. What’s to stop NYC from re-passing the law and repealing it again 10 years from now when SCOTUS takes it up again? What’s to stop California from doing the same?

      • Breyer is 82, I hear. We need to make sure Trump has a Republican Senate when he croaks, 7-2 can simply bulldoze the bullshit in a week. The only part of NFA 1934 which has ever been in front of SCOTUS is short barrel shotguns, with 7-2 the rest could be found in violation of 2A and the whole mess for 90 years collapses and ATF disappears. Surrendering won’t get that done.

        • You mean 6-3 right? Did you forget about RINO Roberts? he’s voted more with the constructionists (iberals) than with the Conservative Constitutionalists.. Barret will make it a 5-4 court…

  14. So obviously this is a firearm forum, but how many people that you work with, friends or others you know, have the skills to complete a 80% lower. What next, I have a block of aluminum, am I in possession of a 1% lower?
    You have a right to build your own firearm, if you have the expertise and skill good for you!. Is the ATF going to regulate your knowledge of firearms?
    Maybe the AG of California should dedicate some time to investigating political corruption and illegal aliens.

    • “Maybe the AG of California should dedicate some time to investigating political corruption and illegal aliens.”

      Do you really think they will investigate themselves?

    • My Australian wife had never assembled (or even fired) an AR, never worked a router, and she did hers in maybe 2 hours with some help. Those router jigs are magic.

    • In the east, it is the five families pulling the strings through Tammany Hall.

      In the west coast it is the cartels with the offer of silver or lead.

  17. This is silly. Californication can simply create a law banning the damn things. The state already bans firearms that are not on its approved list, “ghost guns” could be declared non-compliant. State law could be changed to prohibit any possession of a firearm without a serial number registered with the state. Californication could declare that any individual who creates a firearm is considered a manufacturer, and must follow all federal and state laws.

    Suing the ATF means Californication is trying to ban home made firearms anywhere in the nation.

    • Hardly shocking considering that almost every gun-control politician talks about the laws that other states don’t have as being the problem.

      Those people over there are too free and it’s making our people uppity and violence prone.

      • “Those people over there are too free and it’s making our people uppity and violence prone.”

        Precisely what is wrong with a republic. Too much freedom going on here. We need a strong-arm dictator with a heart of gold. Those guys have been wonderful throughout history. Remember, uh, hhhmm, uuummm, like, uhhh….what was his name? Oh, yeah…Atilla the Honey.

    • Just to let you know, California already has such laws. If you want to build a gun from an 80% lower, you have to obtain a unique serial number from the CADOJ—with a background check–which number MUST be engraved on the receiver to the same spec as a federally issued manufacturer’s number BEFORE you start milling. The gun, if an AR or AK style firearm, must be built in compliance with California law regulating “assault weapons” so as to be an exempt firearm (no new assault weapons may be registered at this time). They also just passed a law that will require by 2025 that all “precursor parts” be purchased in the same manner as ammo, meaning all sales must be processed through an authorized dealer in California in a face to face transaction with an “instant” background check.

      Which makes me wonder a few things:
      1) Why does California have standing to bring the lawsuit?
      2) What authority does California or a court have to instruct the ATF to enact regulations?
      3) What authority does the ATF have to issue a new regulation redefining “firearms” as including uncompleted receivers? The ATF can only issue regulations within the scope of an authorizing statute.
      4) California alrady has had great difficulty in defining when a piece of steel or aluminum or plastic constitutes an “unfinished receiver” aka a “firearm,” what makes the AG think the ATF can do a better job?

      Ultimately, the point of the lawsuit is to eliminate the national trade in unfinished firearms, because the AG knows that people will simply buy receiver kits out of state and finish them without complying with the law. But that still leaves the BIG QUESTION–how many “ghost guns” are acutely used in the commission of a crime? Somehow the answer to that question is rather elusive.

    • You people all want to be goddamn lawyers. What was wrong with. “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands”….or however the saying goes.

      • “You people all want to be goddamn lawyers. What was wrong with. “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands”….or however the saying goes.”

        Not tracking your point, here. The comment was used to uncover the larger truth, that Californication wants to use their lawsuit to disrupt firearm sales/manufacture in every state.

  18. If Biden actually wins, he will get one SCOTUS pick, replacing Breyer. Short of packing the Court and with all of the open judicial seats Trump filled, most of his gun control agenda is in the trash and even without an injunction compliance rates would be near zero.

    Write your Senators and let them know you want them to vote for confirmation for his latest SCOTUS pick.

    • “If Biden actually wins, he will get one SCOTUS pick, replacing Breyer. Short of packing the Court…”

      There is always the Scalia option…..sudden, unexplained death while visiting communists, urr, I mean, uh “friends” in a remote location with no nearby medical or legal authorities. So they get a ruling by phone that is accepted by “everyone”.

    • “If Biden actually wins, he will get one SCOTUS pick, replacing Breyer.”

      Thomas is 80, at least. More days behind than ahead. It would be bad for Thomas to do an RBG, and wait out a Trump second term.

        • “Clarence Thomas is 72. Born in 1948.”

          Thanx. I was working off of some article where Thomas was declared to be 80.

          OTOH, Thomas would be 76 in 2024. There is only one Trump (there has never been another in history), and the Repubs have no bench. Betting on a further continuation (assuming Trump wins in Nov) after2024 of Trump’s policies/personality, eagerness to take on the Lefties, is taking really long odds. The next Republicrat presidential candidate will be from the “establishment” gang, who favor losing with honor, over actual victory for the people; style over substance (as they have been since 2015).

          • Isn’t Mike pence an option?

            Ted Cruz has already declared his intent to run in 24… Not a bad pick needs a strong VP choice.. Pence will only be be 65 in 24 but too much “religious” baggage to carry a majority… Cruz will be 54, strong Constitutionalist, 1st Latino (for some reason 1sts are popular) and strong on 2A…

  19. Suing to change the laws and judgements made by the courts. Calif should pass a law Fining the person who is suing(bercerra) personally responsible for the fine who is obstructing the rights of the citizens.

  20. “If you can assemble Ikea furniture you can probably assemble a ghost gun. And you can probably do it faster,” said Hannah Shearer

    What Ikea product requires a drill press or the milling of metal?

    These people have no idea what semi-automatic means, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that they don’t know what is involved in building a firearm from an 80% lower.

    Lying idiots, once again.

  21. Neither this article or the one more directly about the school shooting mentions anything about the gun the kid used being an 80%… in fact, the school shooting article mentions that the gun the kid (too young to possess one anyway) used had not been registered and was part of his deceased father’s collection. It implies that they checked on gun by using it’s serial number as no mention was made of it not having one. I imagine the father possessed it from a time prior to registration laws or picked it up from a friend or out of state and it just never made it into the system… and so what if it had been registered?? It was taken without permission or knowledge of anyone and used by someone prohibited to possess or use it anyway. The kids he killed are just as dead.

  22. I’m a little bit conflicted. We have lost the battle over background checks. Only a small minority support repealing background checks. An even smaller minority support allowing violent felons to possess firearms.

    A small minority of people support banning the home manufacture of primitive firearms where the person has to actually do a lot of machining or forging to manufacture the gun. This is particularly true of people are drilling or forging the barrel themselves. Home assembly using completed parts plus a 80% receiver is a gray area for a lot of people. Finishing an 80% receiver is not that difficult. Just drill a hole then shape it with a dremel tool.

    I certainly support the right of citizens too manufacture firearms for themselves. Completed parts plus a 80% receiver isn’t illegitimate to me. However: I have a problem with people buying (or strealing parts for 100+ guns, finishing the 80% receivers, assembling the guns, then selling the guns without background checks or an FFL to known felons. I know people who were doing this.

    • “I know people who were doing this.”

      Then they are not law-abiding, responsible gun owners. You know people are violating the law. Next move is yours.

    • Elmer, the problem with your being a little bit conflicted is you are saying that ALL citizens shouldn’t be able to make a firearm from an 80% because SOME are selling the guns without background checks.

      If you build your own 80% firearm, you are the manufacturer. Selling a 100% firearm, that you manufactured, without the proper FFL license and firearm registration, is illegal already. A manufactured firearm with the intention of selling, must be *registered* with the ATF [I’m not talking about the 4473] (I am assuming a little here based on submitting an NFA Form 1 once that had a typo in the serial number, and the entire form was rejected as the firearm was not known to the ATF).

      • Heh guys. I am in complete agreement. These folks were criminals. They were also operating a very large scale marijuana grow without benefit of Oregon licenses or permits. The only plausible market was to export out of State. Try explaining this to the fucktard judges of Yamhill county. (Google “Amanda S Marshall, US Attorney for the State of Oregon” and “Judge Ladd Wiles” aka “Amanda Marshall’s cuckold”. Amanda actually invoked the Clintonion rationalization that it really want adultery because she was just performing oral sex on her boyfriend. Her boyfriend disputed this).

        The fundamental issue in this case is the continue attempts to control crime by controlling guns rather than controlling criminals.

  23. I guess someone will sue to make BATFE regulate corn as it might be uses to make alcohol.

    Cant have home brewing.

  25. Police said that a “ghost gun” was used in the recent ambush shooting of the two officers in LA. We can be sure that our enemies will use that as ammunition against us.

    • “Police said that a “ghost gun” was used in the recent ambush shooting of the two officers in LA.”

      “The word means what we want it to mean”.

      Rhetorical:
      What were/are the characteristics of the gun, attributes that qualify for the label “ghost gun”? Let’s suppose it was a gun the shooter made in his basement. How did/does being a “ghost gun” factor into the event? The shooter is in jail. The gun confiscated. How did being a “ghost gun” frustrate the police investigation? How did the authorities rule out all other means for the shooter to obtain a gun?

      • sorry for the exhuming necro.
        the segment i saw stated that that meant it could not be traced. the horror.

        • “the segment i saw stated that that meant it could not be traced.”

          exactly. “ghost guns” have a specific meaning that does not include guns where only the serial number is removed/defaced.

          my reading of the article was/is that the shooter was arrested with the gun in possession. no more is needed for prosecution. trying to “trace” a gun in order to find more people to charge with crime, according to ATF leads to the last legal owner, at best. There is no data on how many times a throw away gun actually leads to an unknown suspect. Tracing seems rarely to “discover” a shooter.

    • Maybe they can take a moment to explain just exactly what difference at this point does it make… If the gun was homemade, if the gun was manufactured commercially, they BOTH do the exact same thing and there are way more commercially built firearms with numbers and history in the hands of criminals than there are “ghost” guns… It’s not likely that a criminal is making their own guns or “have a guy” that builds guns for them (much cheaper and simpler to just steal one.. If they find the gun intact the ballistics, firing pin and extractor/ejector markings and rifling are all that matters.. serial number (or lack of one) will not tell if the gun was involved in the crime…

  27. The case is asinine, and the feds have more money than the plaintiffs. I welcome them wasting their money tilting at windmills. At some point, something is a chunk of metal or plastic, and not a gun part. When it isn’t a gun part, BATFE had no reason to regulate it. At 100%, someone loads and fires it. At 0%, all bar stock and billets, ingots, and slabs are treated as guns (background checks, serial numbers, felons banned, taxes, waiting periods, age restrictions, interstate transfers only to FFLs). There’s video of a guy casting a receiver from soda cans or folding an AK receiver from a shovel. Does a Coke can, bicycle, or car part need to be treated like a gun? Since there is a legal definition of a gun, anything that doesn’t have those characteristics isn’t a frame/receiver. If something that could potentially become a gun someday must be treated as a gun, must a fertilized egg be treated as a person? How about an individual egg or sperm?

  29. If talking about gun laws is fun for the guys on here then continue it, but I don’t think it’s the way to go about protecting our gun rights. I can guarantee you that gangbangers, cartel guys, and just everyday criminals are not worried about laws, and they’ll likely still be around when the rest of us are dead. I think the only way of dealing with this is to man up and decide if you’re going to make a stand or not. If you are, then use some common sense and make some alliances…..you know, well-regulated militia sorts of things.

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