Written by Kyle Schmidbauer
President Joe Biden is set to unveil his administration’s finalized version of its “ghost gun” regulation as early as Monday, the Associated Press reports.
The incoming regulation is expected to crack down on unserialized, privately-made firearms, according to the AP.
“I want to rein in the proliferation of so-called ‘ghost guns.’ These are guns that are homemade, built from a kit that include the directions on how to finish the firearm. You can go buy the kit. They have no serial numbers, so when they show up at a crime scene, they can’t be traced,” Biden said in an April 2021 speech.
In the proposal, released in May 2021, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) also sought to require manufacturers and dealers distributing ghost gun parts to be federally licensed, as well as for licensed firearms dealers to add serial numbers to all unserialized guns they plan on selling, according to the AP. Background checks would also be required for the sale of kits containing parts necessary in the assembly of firearms, the outlet also noted.
Federal officials have raised concern over ghost guns for the past several years, according to the AP, with such firearms appearing on crime scenes at a notably increasing rate. Almost 24,000 ghost guns were reported to have been recovered by authorities between 2016 and 2020, according to the AP.
Biden is also expected to announce the nomination of Obama-era U.S. Attorney Steve Dettlebach as the director of the ATF. His previous nominee for the post, gun control advocate David Chipman, was withdrawn from consideration after a lack of bipartisan support stalled his nomination for several months.
Ghost gun regulation has been a key item in the Biden administration’s gun control agenda, with congressional Democrats and gun control advocates pushing the Department of Justice to finish drafting the rule for several months, according to the AP.