home made built ghost gun
A homemade firearm that federal agents say was recovered on Feb. 6, 2020, from the Edmonds, Wash., home of Nathan Brasfield. A federal judge handed a nearly six-year prison term Friday to a Washington state man who amassed an arsenal of homemade "ghost guns" despite being on federal supervision for an earlier firearms conviction. (U.S. Attorney's Office via AP, File)

Those of us who worry about gun proliferation used to obsess about “the iron pipeline,” a.k.a. I-95, along which weapons were ferried from Southern states where they were easy to purchase to Northern destinations where they could be sold for a very tidy profit.

Now shipping through the iron pipeline is sort of like keeping in touch with all your friends and family by writing lovely letters on your personal stationery and taking them to the post office to buy stamps and put them in the mail. So … 20th century. Today if you want an off-the-records gun, you go online, of course. You order a ghost, which arrives at your home in pieces, ready to be assembled. You can even order a 3-D printer to make one from scratch.

“This is as big a threat as anything I’ve ever seen,” said John Feinblatt, the head of Everytown for Gun Safety. “They’re a dream come true for a prohibited person — a felon. Or an armed extremist. They’re invisible. They’re well made.”

— Gail Collins in ‘They’re Invisible. They’re Well Made.’ They’re Ghost Guns.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

70 COMMENTS

  1. BAN SHOP CLASS!! BAN LIBRARIES!! BAN THE INTERNET!!!! BAN CASH TRANSACTIONS AT LOWES/HOME DEPOT-N-FRIENDS!! BAN WOOD!! BAN PLASTIC!! BAN METAL!!! REEEEEE!!!! :::pearl clutching intensifies:::

    • Ban F-350 dually trucks! Especially the black ones with lift kits, oversize All Terrain tires, brush guards, exhaust flow upgrades, KC light bars, 4×4, winches, and all other unnecessary things a “reasonable” person doesn’t need.

      Go Prius! For the children!

      • Only items which are deemed necessary by the peoples committee are acceptable.
        Soylent green. One spoon. One cup. One pair socks. Everything else is bourgeois luxury and privilege. And one long shoelace.

  4. Let me ask this question. Does a “ghost gun” kill any body more dead than a plain old gun? Just asking.

  5. RE: “This is as big a threat as anything I’ve ever seen,” said John Feinblatt, the head of Everytown for Gun Safety. “They’re a dream come true for a prohibited person — a felon. Or an armed extremist. They’re invisible. They’re well made.”

    Not so fast john boy…Since history has confirmed your beloved Gun Control in any shape, matter or form is an agenda rooted in racism and genocide it appears your agenda is a proven threat to humanity. Therefore little john…You have just seen the biggest threat to freedom there is in America or anywhere else. And you can see it again and again whenever you look in a mirror.

    • Working in technology, I don’t see people who can’t spell PC and whose Microsoft knowledge ends at XBox suddenly go out and buy PCs and 3D printing gear to make “ghost guns”.

      Quicker , cheaper, and easier to get a black market gun.

  6. Oh for cripes sake! A TTAG article just for dacian. I’ll bet he’s gonna go nuts and organism himself to death over this one.

    🤣

    • Under UV light lil’d’s Revolution Command Centrsl (aka the basement) looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.

  8. “a.k.a. I-95, along which weapons were ferried from Southern states where they were easy to purchase to Northern destinations where they could be sold for a very tidy profit.”

    By Southern states he means, like, Pennsylvania? And by Northern states he means Maryland, right?

  9. What they fail to understand is that not that long ago (prior to 1968 GCA) ALL guns were “ghost guns”. The current uproar is as phony as a 3 dollar bill. So this Gail person, and the rest of that crowd, can kiss my butt.

  10. Well a bill has been introduced into the ILLinoy legislature to ban g g g ghost guns. It’ll likely pass. I’m not a partaker but that may accelerate our move to Hoosierland. And I ♥️ constitutional carry. And the insane taxes here. And Dims suck. Since Chiraq already blames Indiana & everyone but themselves for their epic violence we’ll likely see no change(or worse).

    • Lol. If a guy is about to rob a convenient store, he isn’t going to care about a law that requires serialization. LOLOL. These people are all so stupid. The serialization laws on ghost guns are not laws to stop criminals. They are laws to stop you.

      • to Anonymouse

        The only people that are LOL are laughing at your complete ignorance. Where in the hell do you think criminals and lunatics get the weapons they use to commit mass murder and crime????? They get them by making ghost guns, buying used second hand guns with no paper work and buying stolen guns. All of which could be greatly curtailed with Safe Storage Laws, Universal Background Checks, Outlawing of ghost guns and kits.

        The proof is in the pudding so to speak and the history of gun control in European and Asian countries have already proven your ignorant rants dead wrong (pun intended)

        Although the deranged Paranoiac Far Right scream no law is 100% effective, neither are laws against murder, rape and child abuse either but we do not do away with such laws because they are not 100% effective either. But that is way over your head as paranoia does not permit this type of person from thinking logically or sanely or accepting the historical success of gun control laws even though no law is infallible.

        • OK, dacian the stupid, I am probably going to have to come up with a new nick for you – dacian the stupid is no longer adequate to describe you complete brainless idiocy:

          “Where in the hell do you think criminals and lunatics get the weapons they use to commit mass murder and crime????? They get them by making ghost guns, buying used second hand guns with no paper work . . .”. REALLY??? Citations and verified statistics, please, you lying POS.

          “. . . and buying stolen guns.”. Yeah, and there ARE statistics and citations for this, you dolt. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/suficspi16.pdf Read it and weep, you complete oxygen thief. THEY STEAL THE EFFIN’ GUNS, OR BUY THEM ON THE STREET, you total embarrassment to the species homo sapiens. Find me the “ghost gun” entry in there, dolt.

          “All of which could be greatly curtailed with Safe Storage Laws, Universal Background Checks, Outlawing of ghost guns and kits.” Yeah, gonna need to see the receipts on that, brainless baboon. ‘Splain to me, Lucy, how your “ban” on “ghost guns” is going to stop ONE friggin’ person from making their own gun. Oh, that’s right, you can’t . . . because you’re a sub-moron, and have literally NO FREAKIN’ IDEA what’s involved in manufacturing a gun.

          You need to S. T. F. U. and go back to your circle jerk. You are too stupid to insult.

    • Washington State just passed a “ghost gun” law, with new manufacture prohibited after 2023. If you have unserialized guns that were built prior to 2019, they are grandfathered, but in the limbo period from 2020 to 2023, you have to bring those in to an FFL to have them serialized and logged in.

      Except “ghost guns” are supposedly untraceable – so how the hell is the state going to figure out when it was made? And FFLs – unless they are manufacturers – have no authority to issue serial numbers or report them. So, what manufacturer is going to take any sort of legal responsibility for Billy Bob’s 3D printed explode-o-matic? I’d wager none. Like any of this crap, the law falls apart under the most cursory of examination.

      • The lefty loons believes at inspection of tree rings on petrified wood, peering into ice core samples, digging in peatbogs will give them valid “climate” info to support their myth of man caused global warmin. Perhaps they can us the same on your gat.

  11. It’s not surprising that the NYT posts this as an opinion piece as no facts are needed for publication. While I did not read the article, I refuse to pay for this POS rag, given their track record an article such as this is par for the course. What really surprises me NOT is the lack of articles or opinion pieces that would back our side.

  12. Can we call people without social security number “ghost citizens?”
    Follow up: can we send “ghost hunters” after these “ghost citizens?”

    • Dacian…….Sam Elliot is rolling eyes, shaking head, and LHAO…..You ARE a special kind of stupid!!! Dacian, aka Useful Idiot……lowering the American IQ since within the womb. It’s apparent once again why your Mommy doesn’t let you out of the basement off leash. Your Mommy is regretting not believing in abortion. Yeah, pass a background check for all gun transactions law. That will stop felons/bad guys from getting guns. We all know those felons/bad guys follow every law to the letter. It’s those rascally ole law abiding good guys who are ignoring the 20,000+ gun laws already restricting “….shall not be infringed.” They will do a NICS check for that stolen gun. Serialize and NICS a “ghost” gun. The only thing ghostly about a homemade firearm, is how scary your crowd’s stupidity reigns supreme.
      Politicians with laws never stop bad guys with guns. They merely control the good guys, which is their true agenda.
      The late Col Jeff Cooper observed, “Killing is a matter of will, not means. You cannot control the act by passing laws concerning the means. That is why our masters in Washington are so anxious to disarm us. They are not afraid of criminals. They are afraid of a populace which cannot be subdued by tyrants. One of the notable aspects of the democratic process is that one need not know anything about a subject in order to pass laws about it.”

  13. How many of these so called ghost guns are home or kit built, and how many are standard, serialized, commercially manufactured guns with the serial numbers filed/scratched off?
    As for the iron pipeline, etc. Last time I checked, the Southern states had the same federal NICS checks and were under the same rules as the rest of the country.

    • For the moment in NY impossible to tell as we count them as the same thing for now.

        • If we did not possess redundant measures of objective qualifications we would find want for any.

  14. quote——————–Today if you want an off-the-records gun, you go online, of course. You order a ghost, which arrives at your home in pieces, ready to be assembled. You can even order a 3-D printer to make one from scratch.

    “This is as big a threat as anything I’ve ever seen,” said John Feinblatt, the head of Everytown for Gun Safety. “They’re a dream come true for a prohibited person — a felon. Or an armed extremist. They’re invisible.—————–quote

    Gail hit the nail right on the head but she need not worry Biden ordered the ATF to ban them through “regulation” (a bypass around our thoroughly prostitute and totally useless Congress).

    Studies show the “iron pipeline” and ghost guns are a menace to any civilized society and guns sales without paperwork and background checks are the law in all civilized countries and their much lower crime and homicide rate with deadly weapons proves those laws work and work well, much better than our almost complete lack of such laws.

    No one but a deranged paranoid Far Right lunatic would argue against such common sense basic gun control laws.

    The Far Right are always their own worst enemies because when crime goes up with guns the law abiding gun owner is the one who suffers by the passage of draconian gun bans which have already been passed at the State level in numerous States in the U.S. and all with the complete blessing of the gun hating power mad courts who have blessed each and every one of the gun and magazine bans.

    Now lets look at the Paranoiac Far Right nut cases that scream “How about 3D guns”.

    There are ways to combat this as well. Government electronic surveillance as well as surveillance of people who buy enough parts to build a complete gun could stop a lot of people from building 3D guns. The law abiding citizen would not because he would risk imprisonment and the Far Right Paramilitary Lunatic Fringe would get caught and put in the slammer. The Government already monitors dangerous groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, KKK, Alt-right, Skin Heads and other Far Right Jackbooted Groups.

    I might add better policing and shutting down of web sites and prosecution of people that permit chat rooms to make private sales is in order as well.

    • And how many members of Stosstruppe Dacian are using kit guns or ghost guns? You fine upstanding antifa types might find it difficult to pass NICS checks with your histories.

    • What studies, who authored these studies?

      You always claim studies but never produce these studies.

    • “….menace to any civilized society and guns sales without paperwork and background checks are the law in all civilized countries and their much lower crime and homicide rate with deadly weapons proves those laws work and work well, ….” Easy, Sam Elliott, breathe. It’s just Dacian again. Yeah, restrictions work so well for dis-armed citizens, as attested to by Puddin Boy, Stalin, Lenin, Chun King Mao, Pol Pot, Chavez, Hitler, Idi Amin, OBlunder, Pigloosi, Slummer, et el.

    • BREAKING NEWS!!!! HOLD THE PRESSES!!!! As ill as it makes me feel, I finally found something on which I AGREE WITH PUDDIN’-FOR-BRAINS Dacian……”…thoroughly prostitute and totally useless Congress.” We have found the Unicorn “common ground.”

  15. There’s literally no way to stop the proliferation of ghost guns. I can make a lower on the 3d printer at the YMCA if I want.

    Gun control is a failed concept.

    • Be careful, I’m sure that was the same mindset Parlor had.

      Too big to fail is a double edge sword.

      • It’s not “too big to fail” when it’s decentralized.

        Printed pieces are like crypto in this regard, the pols are aghast that they can’t actually control it.

        As one of the Fed governors said of BTC (to literal gasps of horror from the MSM and pols); it’s not possible to control without entirely destroying the internet, which is a fool’s errand at this point.

        • I don’t see ‘decentralization’. What I see is that ALL the gatekeepers are the same and every single one of them are just as susceptible to suggestion from the left. Mainly referring to ISP’s and social media platforms that own all or part of the transmission medium. This IS where Parlor failed. If people don’t learn from that experience then all there will be left is an illusion.

    • Exactly. It is hopeless to attempt to control contraband. At best you can move the price. At the height of the drug war DEA spent billions to double the street price of coke. So dealers switched to home made Crank.
      What is possible is to control people. Have you committed a third violent crime? Then we will incarcerate you. This works.

    • No, No, No….gun control is not a failed concept. You merely mis-understand the true agenda behind gun control. Dead bodies in streets or WallyWorld aisles aren’t the problem, they are the Libturd Useful Idiot justification for the little minds of the Government Plantation Dwellers. Gun control is highly effective. It is highly endorsed by Stalin, Mao, Amin, Chavez, Hitler, Pol Pot, OBlunder, Pigloosi, Slummer, et el.

    • possum,

      Well, it IS April, and dacian IS a fool . . . nah, calling dacian a fool is an insult to fools everywhere.

  17. ” …Dream come true for a prohibited person–felon, or armed extremist.”

    Well, that’s just about everybody in the “We, the People” club if their sinister decades old LBJ regime’s Racist Deprivation of Rights and hard core introduction of the Master Marxist Disarmament Agenda with the ’68 GCA that makes EX-felons permanantly prohibited for life gets their way by effectively disarming the Populus to prevent any such forcible armed resistance (like that of Ukrdainian citizens) against an emergence of a Totalitarian Dictatorship in America. Which is a last resort methodology enshrined in our Constitution with the 2nd/A, if all other political measures are compromised.

    After making these permanent ‘prohibition’ laws, they’ve already managed a surreptitious expansion of this sinister rights-violating strategy with the likes of mental(not a crime) illness, Arbitrary Due process violating Red Flag rights Deprivations, and coming soon, to a Horror Show near you… prohibitions like the “Potential” profiling of dangerous categories like ‘Domestic Extremism’ or ‘Insurrectionist Grooups’ (‘used’ to be a right to protest the g under the redress of grievances’. By the way, what exactly IS the difference between an ‘insurrectionist’ and a Revolutionist?

    And, They’ve already just about reached a tipping point of making enough laws to somehow make virtually every American Free society behavior illegal, with more and more and more coming… As privacy erodes further, and A.I. based universal Surveillance expands to ubiquitous proportions, they’ll be able to ‘enforce’ these ‘prohibited’ sanctions with their new ‘Wet Dream’ of replicating the type of ‘social credit’ status (like in China, NK, etc.) especially when they eliminate Cash transactions, where they will then know every dime you spend and what you spend it on, thus guaranteeing the ‘nowhere to hide (CIA motto) society they rabidly desire! There will then be ‘Flocks’ of Alphabet ‘Ravens’ a knock, knock, shooting your dog, a knocking, at your chamber door…

    The only value of this Moron’s statement is that it reveals the blatant intentional Fraud of the their lies that ‘gun control’ is for Public Safety because everybody knows that most active criminals usually know better than to leave a paper trail online and prefer the use the traditional ‘Other’ kind of Ghost guns like stolen, or removed serial numbers are always available and can’t be traced either. Which, by the way, was quite legal a few decades ago to have no serial I.D. because it was nobody’s business, especially the G’s, what guns you had, and you still occasionally see ‘Unserialized’ firearms direct from the manufacturers at gun shows. And by the way, again, It’s also very in your puss obvious that all this obsessive-compulsive tax dollar pissing away effort to know the identity of every firearm and its owner is in violation of the FOPA law against Registration of Private firearms!?

    This Gun Grabber’s revealing statement also exemplifies what sociologists convey about maintaining a situation where a free and law-abiding value-producing citizen who made mistakes in their past life, must, by absurdity of law, remain vilified and castigated for life in perpetual prohibition, never to be redeemed, which causes a deleterious schism in the collective psychology of our country and the relationships toward each other.

    Having a punitive prohibitionary situation that does absolutely Nothing to prevent violent crime but does create incessant redemptive challenges for rehabilitation, is far in excess of cruel and unusual punishment, especially for minorities, and becomes devoid of equitable applications of Crime and Punishments, where the punishment must fit the crime. This atrocity cannot be reconciled in a free and enlightened society. Historically, if a person is an imminent and far too dangerous threat to society menace, they would be confined until further adjudication and evaluation. Otherwise, upon rehabilitation and integration back into society, they should be ‘allowed’ to return to the state of complete exercise of their Constitutional rights.

    We all realize what this evil scam is at this point in our social and political society. And the abuses of this and what is to ‘evolve’ WILL Most Certainly end our Liberties as we know them. To add insult to Deprivation of Rights, Idiots like this are now Bitch slapping us with this type of rhetoric until we grovel down and comply with their communist dictates disguised as benevolent measures to protect us…

    How They keep getting away with this was, and still is, the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on our liberty and Constitutional Rights.

    We have no more important work to do in life right now but to take back the House and Senate this soon approaching November 22 midterms.

    Otherwise…well, that would be unthinkable.

    • I see you’ve joined the First Against the Wall Club.

      Your membership card’s in the mail.

  18. I think the polymer pipeline is doing quite well considering the number of pack back rifles Keltec is able to give away.

  19. The feds claim that they have the authority to regulate firearms because it is part of interstate commerce. How can a man who is barred by Statute from engaging in a particular type of interstate commerce have any effect on the interstate commerce by manufacturing his own guns and where does the federal government derive its Authority to regulate those guns that the man made outside of any possible influence of interstate commerce? I can understand provoking the man supervised release but the feds have no Authority to regulate felons manufacturing their own guns because it doesn’t affect interstate commerce unless that person crosses state lines in the process of manufacturing.

    • Wickard v Filburn (1942).

      In a nutshell: Abstention from interstate commerce is interstate commerce because your abstention affects intrastate demand, thereby affecting interstate demand, supply, price and flow.

      Since your lack of behavior has an affect on interstate commerce your lack of participation is, itself, a behavior which is therefore regulatable as part of interstate commerce.

  20. BE GLAD NOT IN NORTH KOREA , GHOST GUN ??
    UNCLE GHOST KIM JACKASSIE UM GHOST COME FOR YA , PRISON , TORTURE , WHATEVER
    I’M JUST GLAD TO GO TO GUN STORE AND BUY ONE .
    I THINK GHOST ARE CHEAP MADE ANYWAY , HOWEVER GUESS DO THE JOB IF YA A CRIMINIAL ?

    • SHUT THE F*** UP, NTexas. If you can’t learn to use your damn CAPS key, please abstain from commenting. Getting really tired of trying to ask nicely. Either post without shouting, or don’t post at all.

  21. Given the chosen language separating a felon from an “armed extremist” couldn’t the “extremist” just buy a regular old corporeal gun?

  22. I was suddenly struck with the full horror of the realization that street drugs do not all come from the organized mass murderers such as the Sacklers. THEY ALSO COME FROM GHOST DRUG MAKERS!!
    These “ghost drugs” are untraceable !! How can they be stopped?? We must ban the precursor tools (buckets) and chemicals!

  23. Aren’t “armed extremists” already armed? They’d just be “extremists” otherwise, right?

    If only we had a process to convict and incarcerate violent people bent on harming others. I know, I know … that’s just crazy-talk.

  24. The movie 1984 cones to mind. With full in home surveillance, total government monitoring, ruthless punishment, pressuring children to rat on their parents, we can stop ghost guns. Or, Just lock up criminals.

  25. I admit after really big guns, motorcycles, heavy equipment, drums, wild women and kids, my hearing isn’t what a young basement dweller’s hearing might be. But, to my old ears, the caps sound exactly the same as the little letters……and work somewhat better for my old eyes. Possibly your issue isn’t letter size but dinger size or anger issues???

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