Supreme Court Votes To Uphold Biden Era Restrictions On Ghost Guns
Photo: Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court
India-West News Desk
WASHINGTON, DC – A conservative Supreme Court that has consistently expanded gun rights has now upheld federal restrictions on “ghost guns,” untraceable firearms often linked to violent crimes.
In a 7-2 decision on March 26, the justices reversed a lower court ruling and affirmed the Biden administration’s 2022 regulation on ghost gun kits and components. The rule, issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), requires manufacturers to serialize firearm parts, obtain licenses, and conduct background checks on buyers—measures already in place for traditional firearms.
Ghost guns, which are typically sold online as kits and assembled at home, lack serial numbers, making them difficult to trace when used in crimes. These weapons are often favored by individuals legally barred from purchasing guns, such as minors and convicted criminals.
The regulation faced legal challenges from gun rights groups, firearms parts manufacturers, and individual gun owners who argued that the ATF had overstepped its authority. In 2023, Texas-based federal Judge Reed O’Connor sided with the challengers, ruling that the agency had effectively rewritten the law without congressional approval.
However, during oral arguments last October, a majority of justices appeared to support the ATF’s authority to regulate ghost guns under the 1968 Gun Control Act. The Biden administration defended the rule as essential to addressing what it called an “explosion of crimes involving ghost guns.”
The Supreme Court’s decision stands in contrast to its recent rulings expanding gun rights. In 2022, the justices struck down a century-old New York law restricting concealed carry permits, declaring for the first time that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense. In June 2024, the court overturned a federal ban on bump stocks, which allow semiautomatic rifles to fire rapidly like machine guns.
