Liberal Announce Bill to Study “Ghost Guns.” The Problem is Criminals Don’t Use Them

“Ghost Guns” are making liberals very nervous. Yet, there is a market for unfinished lower-receivers, called “80 percent lower-receivers,” which have no serial numbers.

Because they lack serial numbers and are unfinished, the BATF does not consider them to be viable firearms. They do not have a chamber properly machined to accept a barrel. They do not have the pinholes needed to affix parts to the lower-receivers.

Anyone can buy an unfinished lower-receiver that has no serial number. Mostly because it is little more than a hunk of metal that has been partially formed.

Finished lower-receivers are great tools for improving firearms and ensuring greater reliability and accuracy over time. Yet, lower-receivers suddenly are targeted by anti-gun fear mongers in Congress, because they have the outside potential of being compromised by criminals to make untraceable firearms – after performing a significant amount of machining work, which most criminals don’t have the knowledge or want to do.

Lower-receivers comprise about 80 percent of the working parts of firearm. Those that are finished and have serial numbers are sold via FFL transfers, just like the commercial sale of firearms. The lower-receivers with serial numbers make it possible to greatly improve a firearm’s performance.

Many of the most popular lower-receivers sold in the United States are designed to improve AR-15 shooting platforms. They make the rifles more efficient and accurate. Buying one requires an FFL transfer, and is treated the same as any firearms purchase.

Yet, anti-gun liberals are spreading fear that such lower-receivers could pose threats to public safety. How? Why, by producing firearms that do not have serial numbers.

Turns out, it is possible to buy unfinished lower-receivers that have no serial numbers, and turn them into unregistered firearms with no serial numbers. It takes a few hours of machining and drilling, but those with some decent mechanical aptitude and the right tools can do it.

You also need to add the missing parts like the stock, barrel, bolts, firing pins, etc. By the time you are done, you have spent the same or more than it would cost to buy a comparably commercially produced firearm.

Once completed, such firearms are called “ghost guns,” because they do not have serial numbers. Without serial numbers, it is impossible to track its ownership path, and that has Democrats nervous.

U.S. Rep. Max Rose, a Democrat, introduced a measure that would require the federal government to spend tax dollars assessing the threat potential from ghost guns produced by those who complete unfinished lower-receivers.

The federal government regulates firearms that have serial numbers. The BATF treats finished lower-receivers that have serial numbers the same way it treats firearms. That means you need to transfer completed lower-receivers with serial numbers via FFL transfers, including requisite background checks.

Rose wants the Dept. of Homeland Security to annually assess threat levels of ghost guns in the United States. That includes unfinished-lower receivers that get converted into untraceable firearms, and 3D-printed guns that might be able to thwart metal detectors.

Rose is using terrorism to stir fear over possible ghost guns winding up in the hands of those domestic and foreign terrorists.

Certainly, keeping untraceable firearms out of the hands of criminals, murderers and potential terrorists is an admirable notion. But the simple reality is, ghost guns are not easy to make, are not cheap to make, and there are far easier ways for criminals to obtain firearms.

Breaking into homes and stealing them is one way. Straw purchases are another.

Both methods are illegal, but do put viable firearms in the hands of criminals and potential terrorists. The firearms, though, are commercially manufactured and fully viable.

Those completed by amateur machinists and tinkerers in their own homes are not reliable. They might be viable, but to expect performance similar to any store-bought firearm is overly optimistic at best.

If stats showed there were a large amount of crimes being committed with unserialized firearms, than Rose would maybe have a point. But stats show almost no crime has been committed with these types of guns.

Ammoland.com turned up only 4 times ghost guns were used in a crime. 3 of which were committed in California and Illinois which both have the toughest gun control laws on the books.

Rose’s measure recently was passed out of committee and now goes before the full House of Representatives for a vote. But it seems the need for the action this bill would require simply isn’t there and would just be a further waste of taxpayer dollars at the behest of a Democrat.