ProPublica Horrified That a Lawful Business is Defending Itself in the Courts

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Rubber Band Gun
Is this a “ghost gun”? (Courtesy Amazon)

After the 2021 ghost gun law passed in Nevada, Polymer80 hired the New York City law firm Greenspoon Marder to file the lawsuit in Yerington, an onion farming town that’s the seat of the county that’s home to Polymer80. One of the firm’s managing partners, James McGuire, traveled to Yerington to argue before Judge John Schlegelmilch that the law was written so vaguely it would be impossible to enforce and would be ripe for abuse.

McGuire said in an email he no longer represents Polymer80 and referred questions to another lawyer at the firm, who didn’t respond to requests for comment.

In court, McGuire argued the law failed to define key terms such as “receiver” and “frame,” and used “murky and undefined terms” to explain what an “unfinished receiver” is. He also argued the law doesn’t specify when in the manufacturing process an unfinished receiver actually becomes a receiver.

During two hearings on the lawsuit, Schlegelmilch seemed to have little patience with the state’s argument that the law relies on industry-specific terms that are well understood by Polymer80. Instead the judge agreed with McGuire that the law didn’t adequately define an unfinished receiver. At one point he asked whether his 5-year-old’s rubber band gun could be considered an unfinished receiver simply because it looks like a gun.

“What if I’m at home, and I’m machining a piece of wood. OK? And my 5-year-old wants a rubber band gun. OK? So, I take that piece of wood, I turn it, I make it into — you know, I take a band saw, and I cut out what looks like a firearm. And I put a couple of sticks on it so that you can put a rubber band on it when you push it up. You’ve seen a rubber band gun before, right? So, is that mostly completed?”

“I mean, a rubber band gun’s not a firearm,” responded the state’s attorney, Greg Zunino. “I don’t think you would ever be prosecuted under that scenario because you still have to have an intent to turn something into a firearm.”

Schlegelmilch ruled in favor of Polymer80 and enjoined the state from enforcing the section of the law that prohibited the possession and sale of unfinished frames and receivers. Schlegelmilch let stand the rest of the law, which Polymer80 didn’t challenge and prohibits the possession of a completed ghost gun.

The state has appealed Schlegelmilch’s ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Schlegelmilch declined an interview request because the appeal is pending.

[Polymer80 president Loran] Kelley declined to comment on the decision to file the lawsuit on his home turf in Lyon County.

Other courts have ruled differently.

A similar lawsuit filed in federal court in Reno the same month was quickly tossed by a judge who decided the law “is a valid exercise of the government’s police power.”

“What happened here, with the state court being more successful for them, indicates politics and ideology within the judiciary,” [Giffords deputy chief counsel David] Pucino said.

This month, a judge in Washington, D.C., found Polymer80 sold illegal firearms in the district and ordered it to pay $4 million in penalties.

The ATF is also seeking to impose a new rule that would require unfinished receivers and frames to include a serial number — one of the federal strategies that Pucino said would be more effective than a state-by-state approach. The new rule, seen as a way to close the ghost gun loophole, is set to take effect on Aug. 24, but it faces at least three lawsuits from the ghost gun industry seeking to block its implementation.

McGuire, the lawyer who represented Polymer80, authored a 27-page public comment submission on the new rule arguing, in part, that it’s impermissibly vague, the same argument that he used successfully to stop the Nevada law.

To some, there’s an easy solution: Polymer80 could stamp serial numbers on the unfinished frames and receivers they sell.

Kelley said putting a serial number on his products wouldn’t hurt his company. But using those numbers to require background checks is a “critical threat” to his business, which he said relies on a growing market of individuals who “value their Fourth Amendment rights” to privacy.

“There’s a problem when people’s right to privacy is infringed and a government agency is looking at what you bought whenever they want,” he said.

— Anjeanette Damon in Why Outlawing Ghost Guns Didn’t Stop America’s Largest Maker of Ghost Gun Parts

78 COMMENTS

  1. I’m always amazed that no fingerprints or dna is ever left on a ghost gun.
    Seems like there’s a people problem on both sides that start with lazy

      • It has yet be scientifically proven, via research and the scientific method, that fingerprints are absolutely unique to a person’s identity. Unlike the use of DNA which went through an exhaustive study where different labs had to show that the method of using DNA as an identifier was, using the scientific method, absolutely, uniquely and statistically, repeatable, i.e., using cold, hard facts. Remember when fingerprints are being compared to find a possible match there is certainly a bit of interpretation to “read” the prints. What has been studied was that many times no two fingerprint “experts” arrived at different conclusions. Fingerprints have not been proven to be unique to one person as being “one in a billion” such as DNA.

    • DNA “analysis” for criminal “investigation” is voodoo BS. As useful (BS) as Phrenology, Astrology, and “ballistics”. (even if the FBI brownshirts aren’t involved).

      • You forgot toolmarks. However, with your comment that DNA is voodoo BS, you’re, pretty much, showing your lack of knowledge about cellular biology. I bet you’ve never dug in to do a little independent research of your own. This is not Big Media, the Dark State or Antifa that “they heard” or “someone said” that DNA is voodoo. Remember that when there is lack of any other evidence left behind by the Big Bad Wolf that DNA the left will prove the Wolf’s involvement in the crime…or his innocence.

        • DNA evidence pretty much proves that you were there, and/or that you touched the thing — barring some kind of strange situation where your DNA got onto someone who then transported it to the scene, like if a hair gets onto someone else’s clothes and falls off somewhere.

          It doesn’t, by itself, prove that you were there at the time or that you did anything while there.

          Other evidence, though, may fill in those gaps.

  2. If I were Polymer80 I would start putting serial numbers on my frames. Every single one of them would have the same serial number, or I would do batches of 1000 with the same numbers and not keep any records. If lawmakers gave me grief about it I would simply say that they are lot numbers intended for internal use only.

    • Nope. Once you concede that you have to serialize, federal law mandates individualized numbers and record keeping as to where they were sold. There is a reason, you see, that every firearm has a unique number on it.

      • It is not true that every firearm has a unique number.

        Each manufacturer is required to put a serial number on their product.
        But there is no need for each manufacturer to do a unique number different from all other manufacturers.
        So it’s possible that a Smith and Wesson revolver might have the same number that a colt 1911 has.
        Also several large manufacturers have started over again when they reach every possible combination on their guns.
        Let’s pretend that Colt uses a seven digit serial number.
        Once they go through every possible combination of seven digits they’re perfectly allowed to start over again.
        So it is possible that two Colt 1911s manufactured 20 years apart may have the same serial number

      • That’s why I specified marking them all with lot numbers instead of serial numbers the same way they do ammunition, medication, food, Etc

    • What does it cost to get a serial number for an 80% receiver? Maybe people should take 7″ lengths of 2x4s and apply for a serial number. Everyone in the state of Ca, could do one a month – other places – maybe 10 a day. They could then have a huge database……..

  3. “which he said relies on a growing market of individuals who “value their Fourth Amendment rights” to privacy“

    The conservative majority United States Supreme Court has ruled they ain’t no such animal as a “right to privacy”.

    So I guess that’s that, it looks like they’re going to need serial numbers and registration with the government, thanks Alito!

    • @Miner49er,

      “The conservative majority United States Supreme Court has ruled they ain’t no such animal as a “right to privacy”.

      Once again … context matters so learn what it means.

      No that has not been ruled. There is no stand alone guarantee right to privacy but there is indeed a right to privacy inherent in the fourth amendment if there is no warrant …

      “…the right of the people to be secure in their person, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

      see this part > “the right of the people to be secure in their person, houses, papers, and effects,…” > that is privacy.

      That’s the right to privacy of which he is speaking and if you understood the fourth amendment and what context means you would understand that.

    • Miner,

      Right to privacy != killing babies.

      Do I have a right to privately kill you? Of course not.

      • A substantial amount of tools, time and work are required to make an 80% a 100% receiver before it can accomodate a laundry list of components and become a functioning firearm. Therefore an 80% is not a firearm anymore than a cake mix in a box is a cake.
        Frankly there is more than enough extras to buy and do to complete an often less costly serialized receiver.

        • You know that. I know that. I suspect even the government knows that but is does not work well for their gun grabbing agenda so they lie.

          The truth does not matter to these people

      • “Do I have a right to privately kill you?”

        I’d agree. It’s more of a privilege than a right. Either way, carry on. 🙂

    • The Supreme Court opinion (I’m assuming you are referring to Dobbs) said NO SUCH THING, you lying propagandist. Sense you fancy yourself such an “expert” on this matter, please cite me the EXACT LANGUAGE in Dobbs (or ANY OTHER SCOTUS opinion) that that says any such thing. Oh, you can’t????? Quelle surprise!!! You can’t win an argument with facts and logic, so you resort to LIES???? What a pathetic @$$wipe of a Leftist/fascist propagandist you are, MajorStupidity.

      Consume mass quantities of excrement and expire, you lying, partisan, propagandist of a s***posting, nitwit of a turd.

      • “Consume mass quantities of excrement and expire, you lying, partisan, propagandist of a s***posting, nitwit of a turd.”

        Don’t hold back, Lamp.

        Tell us how you *really* feel… 🙂

    • Your side started it, miner. You had no problem with violating human and civil rights. Intruding into our right of privacy to require permits and 4473’s to exercise our 2a rights.

      You were fine with that. But let one of your sacred cows get gored using your own game plan and suddenly the wailing and shrieking starts.

  4. From the article:

    “There’s a problem when people’s right to privacy is infringed and a government agency is looking at what you bought whenever they want,” he said.“

    Sorry folks, as the ‘constitutional originalist’ Alito ruled, there is no enumerated right to privacy in the constitution.

    “A key part of the rationale of Alito’s opinion is that there is no such thing as a right of privacy in the Constitution. That’s what the court relied upon in all of these cases,” Stone told Insider. “If that’s true in Dobbs, then why isn’t true in others?”

    https://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-scotus-draft-opinion-right-to-privacy-rights-risk-experts-2022-5?amp

    • Even RGB said how Roe was decided was on shaky ground from the start.

      An abortion is not privacy. If anything abortion would fall under the 10A. If the majority of States feel that abortion should be a Federal Constitutional right, they need to propose a new amendment and have it codified.

      The abortion support groups wasted 50 years not doing that. They relied on a SCOTUS not to overturn itself like it has several other times.

      • I clearly remember long loud arguments between my law school brother and activist sister at the dinner table. And, to be fair, there was a movement to strengthen Roe V Wade, but politicians avoided it like the hot potato it is. And people would get shouted down when they suggested it was bad law “for a good reason” and needed further legislation. If you were against the decision, you were bad even if you support abortion. It was ridiculous.

    • We can find all of the legal rights we want to make up, as long as they support our insane progressive policies right Miner49er. You just illustrated the key hypocrisy of claiming that the judiciary ruling in favor of an enumerated civil right. But do tell us about how that works so we can ignore you more mkay.

    • I long ago discovered that some of the most educated people on the planet are some of the dumbest. Education can fix ignorance but nothing can cure stupid, you have my pitty.

    • @Miner49er,

      Once again … context matters so learn what it means.

      No that has not been ruled. There is no stand alone guarantee right to privacy but there is indeed a right to privacy inherent in the fourth amendment if there is no warrant …

      “…the right of the people to be secure in their person, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

      see this part > “the right of the people to be secure in their person, houses, papers, and effects,…” > that is privacy.

      That’s the right to privacy of which he is speaking and if you understood the fourth amendment and what context means you would understand that.

      Alito was correct, there is no “right of privacy in the Constitution” as a stand alone enumerated right but there is a right to privacy in the fourth amendment with “the right of the people to be secure in their person, houses, papers, and effects,…” > that is privacy.

      You are arguing an entirely different thing with Roe because you don’t understand the subject matter in relation to firearms, now you bring up Roe to move to goal posts.

      • That was good, .40. People have a tendency to get stagnated with a point that favors their biased predisposition on something rather than continue to equitably resolve the problem objectively for the best solution.

        Then the rest of us don’t understand most of the complications, mitigations, and imponderables of the reality of human behavior which all these ‘laws’ are made to control.

        So yes, the Founders probably felt they didn’t need to waste time and space to elaborate specifically in the Constitution on one of the top GOAT Natural Rights that everybody knew and exercised because they literally took them for ‘granted’ since that was always what life was about until some evil others tried to violate those natural rights.

        At some point that went without saying. Like the right to personal self-defense, and ‘ownership’ of property.

        There are more ‘UNenumerated’, but nevertheless legally valid rights enforced by law, than the relatively small by comparison amounts of specified ‘rights’ in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

        They do this under the idea that if a behavior that needs ‘control’ for the good of individual community or societal function arises and it’s not already covered by Constitutional Amendments as ‘Laws of the Land’, the states or local municipalities may legally create new/different laws to remedy the issues.
        But these ‘other’ ancillary laws Cannot contradict or violate the established Bill of Rights and Constitution. But unfortunately, too many of these State laws were made to intentionally do exactly that.

        So, besides the 4th/A, which distinctly restricts the G from violating your personal ‘privacy’ the fact is that we Do HAVE ‘Private Property’ ownership that the violation of which is called trespassing and is a crime potentially defensible by the 2nd/A. This is an extension of personal privacy, as .40 explained. It is well established in society that it almost doesn’t need defining or explaining?

        Anybody who can’t get this is just being morbidly cognitively disenfranchised with themselves for some stupid rationale.

        Maybe ‘miner’ meant that the government is trying to eliminate all privacy and currently it’s working so in effect, we pragmatically no longer have true privacy in a surveillance police state? Which certainly would be true.

        But we certainly, histordically, always revered privacy as a society. And anybody who cites the absence of enumeration in the Constitution to justify government ‘authority’ to violate an unspecified precise reference to a long-standing Natural human right to have others prevented from violating your personal bodily space and functions, is like saying that since there is no Constitutional right to use any mode of transportation besides your legs to move anywhere, all personal vehicles can be banned?

        And, of course, in the current advancing Marxist Agenda, where you will “…own nothing and Like it”, the idea of public transportations only, like not having absolute sovereign control over your own body, is not out of the realm of tyrannical agendas. In effect, it is already in the works with all these intentional enslavement laws flooding the land and drowning the individual’s rights to Liberty.
        (Read ‘Three Felonies a Day” on Amazon)

        The Framers just specifically ‘enumerated’ the main Naturally endowed Rights that Sovereign Citizens were born with ‘because these were the main ones tyrannically systematically violated by the ‘Crown’ in those days.

        So, when the debate comes around to comparing Abortion rights to gun rights, it’s pretty clear after dismissing all the intentional obfuscations That the Abortion ‘right’ of women was Not enumerated specifically because it already was included and relegated to the privacy rights associated with your personal physical body.

        And like a lot of everything else, statutory regulations did little to resolve any deleterious situations compared to good old fashioned common sense and objective reasoning. But they certainly could be abused and used far worse than an individual’s poor judgement. Especially when the laws are designed for despotic control of the masses.

        The ongoing abortion and gun serial number arguments are both stupid in essence. The pragmatic ramifications based on historic reality precedent will eventually burn itself out and the reality distinction will eventually prevail.

        Here’s why:
        You simply cannot tell a Free American citizen what they cannot have, or do, when it comes to capitalist free enterprise, consumerism, or recreation.

        There are certain proprietary elements of fundamental existentialism in our American dream lifestyle that simple won’t tolerate too much government intrusion. There’s a tipping point, and right now we’re all balancing on the sharp, penetrating, ‘tip of the spear’.

        The Abortion issue is even more deeply entrenched in this perspective. No woman is ever–I emphatically reiterate–EVAHH, as they say down South, going to let anybody tell them what to do with their own bodies if they had their way. Not the G, Not their partners, Not even god.

        For you misogynistic religionists, all you have to do is go a few pages deeper into the Big book of history to see how intrepidly women have defied all authority besides themselves.
        And still are. This time well armed.

        And, ultimately, both gun control and womb control transcend all politics whether you like it or not.

        But as concurrent with continuing historic practice, the Organized Corporate Religionists and their brainwashed sycophant minions who worship on alter of mind-numbed blind obedience to the so-called Church of God and then leave in saintly subscription to the unification anti-abortion marketing ploy designed to help prolong its inevitable demise.

        Of course nobody in their right mind could deny the complete disgust at merely the thought of killing children in any state of development, the unfortunate reality is that intentional abortions have prevailed as an unfortunate but not necessarily criminal or immoral personal choice of women. There’s a long history of it which I won’t get into now. Like death in general, it was passively accepted as part of the unfortunate experiences in pro-creation.

        But this time around the overturning of Roe is probably going to backfire on the Republican’s political soiree with the religionist anti-abortion crowd.

        The modern base of independent women voters including a surprising amount of undecided and Christian Republican women are not going to cave to the holier than thou notion of criminalizing and punishing unplanned pregnancy termination.

        And they’ll switch their vote to prove it.

        Because after some intense introspection tempered with a clear perception of the truth of life. How can abortions be criminalized with no exceptions when general killing of people is Not?

        It’s as though everybody is under the delusion that life is not one of, if not the least valuable commodities on the planet?

        The Sacred Hypocrisy! Murder in the name of God. It always gets me that all these mewling Anti-Abortionists who writhe in agony over the thought of an unwed teenage girl getting an abortion when she finds out she’s pregnant after a rape incident…
        yet they stupidly cheer on the innocent young adults in the feckless useless pointless horror story warfare murders in the Ukraine Deep State debacle. A killing field where these anti-abortionists think nothing of the rampant slaughter of Ukrainian children without even a complaint to their representatives about using tax money to facilitate these…

        battlefield Abortions!

    • To miner69er, babies are guilty of inconvenience which is punishable by death, but criminals are not guilty because of “white supremacy,” “racism,” “poverty,” or some other leftist shibboleth. In other words, helpless babies are guilty, but grown human beings have no agency whatsoever and are not guilty of their actions.

      Liberal, “progressive,” leftist philosophy in a nut shell.

    • If there is no right to privacy then liberals have nothing to stand on for their demands that Republicans get out of their bedrooms.

    • Good now you see there is no statement privacy in the constitution. Now we can go back to arresting homosexuals who have sex in there own home. Just like single mothers on welfare who have sex with a man in government housing. Arrests that you support.

    • Good now you see there is no statement privacy in the constitution. Now we can go back to arresting h0m0sexu@ls who have s e x in there own home. Just like arresting single mothers on welfare who have sex with a man in government housing. Arrests that you support.

  5. For the purposes of increasing their power, ATF pretends pretends that every gun with a scratched off serial number is a ghost gun. It doesn’t matter if it is a revolver or an old bolt action .22 no serial number makes it spooky and they will shoot any dog or tell any lie to get more power and funding.

      • It is a magic talisman that allows crimes to be solved instantaneously.

        Even prevents crime too according to it’s sacred believers.

    • But but but you can put an eye out with yer rubber band gat!🙄 Being vague is a feature not a bug…I have no dog in this fight. Or a frt either. Can’t do chit in ILLannoy. Good luck.

  6. state’s argument that the law relies on industry-specific terms that are well understood by Polymer80

    They were well-understood, industry-specific terms. Then the ATF pulled the rug out from under everybody, by explicitly disowning those definitions and not replacing them with anything else. Which brings us to where we are today.

    • And the ATF is rule making which has been ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court with respect to a different agency. They stated that only congress can make laws, not agencies. Their rule is worthless.

      • they snuck the power for the epa to regulate emissions in.
        what else was in that tax and spend bill?

  7. quote————-Kelley said putting a serial number on his products wouldn’t hurt his company. But using those numbers to require background checks is a “critical threat” to his business, which he said relies on a growing market of individuals who “value their Fourth Amendment rights” to privacy.

    “There’s a problem when people’s right to privacy is infringed and a government agency is looking at what you bought whenever they want,” he said.———-quote

    What hypocrisy. The Far Right scream about “right to privacy” when it comes to making weapons that are often used by criminals so the weapon is untraceable but in the next breath they scream a woman has no right to privacy and must be a “breeding sex slave” by outlawing abortion.

    You cannot have it both ways.

    • @dacian

      these ‘weapons’ are not “often used by criminals”. only 1 out of 12 criminals use guns home made or otherwise. that is not ‘often’.

      “must be a “breeding sex slave” by outlawing abortion.”

      LoL 😂

      Tell us, how many women were forced to become pregnant and how many were held in captivity to be a breeding sex slave?

      sure we can have it both ways.

      One way is there is no enumerated right to privacy in the constitution that the pro abortion movement says there is. Abortion was never an enumerated right, nor is privacy an enumerated right.

      But in the context of firearms in this case with his statement

      “There’s a problem when people’s right to privacy is infringed and a government agency is looking at what you bought whenever they want,”

      there is the fourth amendment which says … “the right of the people to be secure in their person, houses, papers, and effects,…” > and that is privacy (unless a warrant).

      Basically he is saying that people have a right to privacy for their purchases of ‘effects’ as the kits are not really firearms and its a made up interpretation to call them that.

      but you go right ahead and ‘booger brain’ me if you want with a reply, its going to be just as stupid as this post of yours now.

      • .40 cal,

        To be fair, SCOTUS HAS acknowledged a “right to privacy” as an unenumerated right, supposedly enforced against the Feds, and applicable to states per the 14th. What Dobbs actually said was that this right did not automatically supersede ANY state regulation of abortion, and that it was up to the states to legislate as they chose, with their specific legislation STILL being subject to challenge at SCOTUS if it went too far.

        That’s it. That is the SUM TOTAL of what Dobbs held. So, theoretically, a state law absolutely banning abortion (a few are talking about it) could be challenged, and end up going to SCOTUS. That case (to my knowledge, at least) hasn’t been brought yet, so we’ll have to wait and see what SCOTUS think the actual limits on state police power in re: the “right of privacy”.

        It’s the Left’s fault, IMHO, that they are having this problem, since they chose to base their idiot Roe decision on “emanations from the penumbra” (an actual quote from Roe v. Wade, I kid you not), rather than the obvious argument that regulating abortion was beyond the police powers of EITHER the Fed OR the states, as it impinged on issues of personal liberty. But Leftists don’t LIKE “personal liberty”, and seek to stomp it out wherever they find it. They didn’t make the obvious argument, because the outcome would not have been to their liking . . . so they went with inventing a “right” that didn’t exist, and justifying it in the most intellectually dishonest, illogical, poorly-written hodgepodge of word-vomit manner possible. They made it stick for 50 years, and thought that gave them “important precedent” status, and therefore made Roe beyond challenge.

        Too bad Leftists were so stupid and historically ignorant that they forgot to read about the history of slavery, Dredd Scott, the right of blacks to vote (and bear arms!!), etc. THAT nonsense went on for a LOT longer than 50 years, but was still struck down (rightly) by SCOTUS.

        Leftists are really good at shooting themselves in the foot. I’m amazed any of them can still walk. But as a collateral benefit, they can take advantage of of ADA protections, and SS disability payments.

      • to booger brain

        You stepped right into the cow patties on this one.

        quote————-these ‘weapons’ are not “often used by criminals”. only 1 out of 12 criminals use guns home made or otherwise. that is not ‘often’.————quote

        A PARTIAL LIST OF LUNATICS AND CRIMINALS WHO BUILT GHOST GUNS AND USED THEM IN CRIME OR MASS MURDERS.

        Are ghost guns frequently used in violent crime?????????????????????????

        Yes, ghost guns are increasing being used in shootings across the country.

        In July 2020, an individual who was prohibited from possessing guns allegedly murdered two people in Pennsylvania using a homemade 9mm handgun.9

        In November 2019, a 16-year-old shot five of his classmates at Saugus High School in California—two of them fatally—using a homemade handgun, before fatally shooting himself.10

        In August 2019, a shooter used a homemade gun kit to build a .223-caliber firearm that he later used to fire 41 shots in 32 seconds in a bar in Dayton, Ohio, shooting 26 people and killing nine.11

        In 2017, in Northern California, a man prohibited from possessing firearms ordered kits to build AR-15-style rifles. On November 13, he initiated a series of shootings that began with fatally shooting his wife at home, followed by a rampage the next day during which he fired at multiple people in several different locations, including an elementary school, killing five people and injuring dozens more.12

        In 2013, a shooter opened fire in Santa Monica, California, shooting 100 rounds, killing five people, and injuring several others at a community college using a homemade AR-15 rifle. Reporting indicates the shooter had previously tried to purchase a firearm from a licensed gun dealer and failed a background check, potentially indicating why he opted to order parts to build a gun instead.13

        Law enforcement officials around the country are sounding the alarm about the dramatic increase in the recovery of ghost guns at crime scenes in their communities. ATF reported that approximately 10,000 ghost guns were recovered across the country in 2019.14 Ghost guns have also been illegally trafficked to Mexico.15 In addition:

        In 2019, Washington, D.C., police recovered 115 ghost guns, a 360 percent increase from 2018, when they recovered 25 ghost guns, and a 3,733 percent increase from 2017, when only three such firearms were recovered.16

        In 2019, ATF reported recovering 117 ghost guns in Maryland with almost 25 percent recovered from Baltimore alone. Ghost gun recoveries in the state then tripled in 2020.17
        According to law enforcement in Philadelphia, ghost gun recoveries in that city rose 152 percent from 2019 to 2020.18

        The special agent in charge of the ATF Los Angeles Field Division reported in January 2021 that 41 percent of the division’s cases involve ghost guns, and a May 2019 statewide analysis in California found that 30 percent of all guns recovered in connection with a crime in the state did not have serial numbers.19

        In addition, an investigation by The Trace found that ghost guns are increasingly becoming the weapon of choice for violent white supremacists and anti-government extremists.20

        In conclusion the ATF is a law unto itself and as in the past it rules at 8:00 AM and it is then a new “regulation” (disingenuous term for new law) is now the law of the land at 5:00 PM.

        No Judge Conservative or Liberal will declare the ATF ruling illegal or Unconstitutional because ghost guns are a danger to the people of the country and even the much ballyhooed Scalia decision with the usual double talk and smoke and mirrors declared “The Courts had the right to regulate firearms” (slick disingenuous term for ban or restrict firearms).

        In conclusion your right to own a weapon rests with the rulings of the courts, not the Constitution, and history has proven this reality like it or not.

        No sane person would want ghost guns legal and no other civilized nation tolerates them.

        quote———-One way is there is no enumerated right to privacy in the constitution that the pro abortion movement says there is. Abortion was never an enumerated right, nor is privacy an enumerated right.———quote

        Before and After the Revolution abortion was actually legal and another poster some time ago posted the many laws that enabled a woman to get an abortion in Colonial America. The Supreme Court ruled it legal 50 years ago and then raped that right recently.

        • how many of those were merely defaced?
          and what would have been used if thery hadn’t obtained those?
          idjit.

        • I saw a news report in Houston about the increasing incidence of ghost guns found at crime scenes. If you paid attention to the numbers, the Houston police find about as many regular weapons a day than ghost guns in a year. But it makes a good hyperventilating story.

    • Life must be a living hell for you, existing with this lack of reasoning and absolute cognitive dissonance in your mind every day. Poor guy.

      • On meds, self-medicating or both, perpetually angry, chronically depressed, the closet he has ever been to happy is a state of screen induced numbness.

        Just like every other leftist.

      • He has delusions of heading his Caravan of Death bringing s0cial justice to the masses via mass executions and redistributing the property to the poor POC victims.

    • You tried to have it both ways, dacian the dumbass. You demanded UBC’s long before the very recent court rulings on 2a. UBC’s are very clearly a violation of the right to privacy. You were good with that.

      You’re pretty much a typical fascist. You want to pick and choose who gets what, if any, rights.

      • To Jethero

        The Right to privacy Jethro does not include the right to sell firearms to hardened criminals and lunatics. Tell me Jethro how would you know who you were selling a gun to in a bar, flea market or gun show. Here in Ohio all one has to do at a gun show is flash a drivers license and we all know how easy it is to get a fake one.

        Even a child would understand that Universal Background Checks would prevent tens of thousands of second hand gun sales to people who should not have them

        • So, in other words, dacian the dumbass. The right to privacy has limits on it. No murder of babies under the right to privacy screen. If I have to fill out paperwork to exercise a right it is no longer a right.

          Once again you fascists are violating human and civil rights. Both mine and the unborn victim.

        • to Jethro

          Abortion rights were granted to women before and after the revolution and the Supreme Court granted that right 50 years ago before the Trump/Nazi appointed court destroyed the courts credibility and crushed the Roe v/s Wade ruling. It now reminds one of the Nazi baby farms of WWII and the Nazi’s ban on abortion for German Women. Once again history repeats itself but what would a High School Drop out like yourself know about History.

        • Apparently more than you, dacian the dumbass. Where are the baby farms now? Our 2a rights were granted over 200 years ago and you still attempt to violate them. You align yourself with the nazis in word and deed and you claim to know more about history than I.

          If you are claiming education you are a liar.

    • What about black powder firearms, otherwise known as antique or antique replicas? High power air rifles? Sling shots, slings, bows and arrows, crossbows, ect. When will it all stop?

  8. I wonder if the AFT will propose a rule to ban the immigration of Pakistanis from the Khyber Pass region and Filipinos due to their gun making skills. The AFT, supported by Giffords, will claim that they’re walking “ghost guns”.

  9. A substantial amount of tools, time and work are required to make an 80% a 100% receiver before it can accomodate a laundry list of components and become a functioning firearm. Therefore an 80% is not a firearm anymore than a cake mix in a box is a cake.
    Frankly there is more than enough extras to buy and do to complete an often less costly serialized receiver.

  10. That rubber-band gun in the photo at the top of this article?
    Just as I suspected, it’s banned here in the People’s Republic of New Jersey!
    Rubber-band guns, banned in New Jersey.
    I knew slingshots were illegal (a felony to own here in the PRNJ), but I wasn’t sure about rubber band guns, so I click on the photo, went to the Amazon link, and sure enough, Amazon says, “This item cannot be shipped to your selected delivery location.”

  11. So, is a block of Aluminum an unfinished receiver? How about 1 with a hole drilled through it?
    They sell benchtop milling machines at places like Harbor Freight or Northern Tool. Not all that expensive and the measurements, drawings and specs. are freely available for anyone to print up if desired. So, is a blueprint, and a block of metal a gun?
    Next thing is the simple fact a working firearm stolen and sold on the street is not as expensive as the parts, jigs and tools to take an 80% kit to finished weapon. And, since most of those so called ghost guns are factory produced guns with the serial numbers defaced, or obscured and not actually a home built weapon. But, it plays well for the media and uninformed to claim them as Un serialized ghost guns.

    • If someone in a jungle workshop in the Philippines can make a functioning 1911, what could be done with proper tools is almost unimaginable. Look up Luty submachine gun made from hardware store parts.

  12. OK, asking the obvious here. When exactly would an unfinished lower require a serial number?
    One could easily envision ATF raiding companies based on the claim unfinished lowers were firearms according to their interpretation of the rules.

    • As of yesterday, the new frame/receiver ruleswent into effect (as mentioned in the story). I’m surprised there hasn’t been a story about it and the subsequent lawsuits fighting it. Basically, manufacturers need a serial number as soon as they make something intended to be a gun. FFLs need to serialized unmarked PMFs when they take possession on them. The ND suit to stop it didn’t get an injunction.

      Also, the FPC lawsuit against bump stocks also went down in the 10th Circuit. I guess an appeal to the Supreme Court is next, if cert is granted.

  13. In the UK that plasticky thing wOULD definitely be classified as a firearm if – ONE it was used as a threat and TWO those threatened believed it to be a gun.
    People in the UK have been shot by the Police Armed Response Units for exactly that and other have recieved lengthy sentences and by the way with overwhelming Public support!
    There have been a spate of shooting recently in the UK mainly in the LIVERPOOL AREA. I think four victims in the last 18 moths or so -this counts as a very worrying ‘spate’ in the UK.
    Nothing remotely would be classified as a ‘MASS shooting’ though. Three out of the four were collateral damage and the other a case of mistaken identity. Don’t quote me though and the details are outbthere on the web if anyone cares to check.

    • “In the UK that plasticky thing wOULD definitely be classified as a firearm …”

      So what? Who cares?

  14. I am glad someone is still fighting the good fight in Lyon County, where I was GOP chairman back in 2007-08. Thank you Judge Schlegelmilch.

  15. Constitution of the State of Nevada
    Article 1.
    Sec. 11.  Right to keep and bear arms; civil power supreme.

    1.  Every citizen has the right to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes.

    2.  The military shall be subordinate to the civil power; No standing army shall be maintained by this State in time of peace, and in time of War, no appropriation for a standing army shall be for a longer time than two years.

    When the general powers of the State bump up against enumerated rights, the general powers lose. At least, that was the vision of the architects of our Constitutional system. Nevada’s “ghost gun” law is unconstitutional on its face precisely because it is intended to LIMIT and RESTRICT the STATE enumerated right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. Too bad we don’t have any judges with the balls to come right out and say that in the first 5 minutes of a case and save us all time.

  16. I am not politically affiliated and do not have a point of view on anything printed in this story. That said, I can’t take any of this post seriously.

    ProPublica produces articles by uninformed journalists with agendas, and the entire site hides behind that enormous bias. I am surprised that the elite news leaders listed on its website have not removed their names.

    I speak as a former news reporter and editor who has commented several times on PP’s sloppy reporting and failures even to attempt to provide context.

    After years of of this, the enterprise needs to shut down and make way for something better.

    • “ProPublica produces articles by uninformed journalists with agendas, and the entire site hides behind that enormous bias.”

      You’ve just described about 80% of what passes for “journalism” these days.

      “…the enterprise needs to shut down and make way for something better.”

      A former news reporter and editor favoring censorship of a site? Ever hear of a little ditty that we like to call “the First Amendment?”

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