Regulating so-called ghost guns could help Reading keep the untraceable firearms off the streets, said Brandon Flood of CeaseFirePA.
“When it comes to ghost guns, there’s no accountability, no traceability, no serial numbers,” he said.
Flood, deputy director of government affairs for the organization dedicated to ending gun violence in Pennsylvania, spoke recently during City Council’s committee of the whole meeting.
He recommends the city pass an ordinance to prohibit the manufacture, use or transfer of such guns and impose penalties for violations.
Ghost guns are unregistered and untraceable, homemade weapons that can be made with a 3D printer, Flood said. They can be homemade or assembled from unfinished kits that can be readily bought online using certain types of gift cards, he said.
The kits are especially dangerous because they can be bought and sold without subjecting the purchaser to a background check, he noted. That makes the gun kits accessible to people who are prohibited from purchasing firearms, including minors, people convicted of violent offenses and those committed to a mental institution, he said.
“You can buy a ghost gun kit for $400 and, again, to someone who is a prohibited purchaser, they’re willing to pay a premium in order to get access to that gun,” Flood said.
Ghost guns are the weapon of choice for violent criminals, gun traffickers and dangerous extremists, he said.
The untraceable guns are a widespread issue, confronting law enforcement agencies nationwide, Flood said.
“To illustrate how insidious the issue is”, he said, “law enforcement agencies seized close to 1,800 weapons in 2016 alone. Fast forward to 2016 through 2021, a total of 46,000 ghost guns were recovered.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, he said, the Department of Justice recovered almost 26,000 ghost guns in 2022.
President Joe Biden’s administration and the ATF in April 2022 defined ghost gun kits as firearms under the law, Flood said. That means government can more carefully regulate the guns by ensuring proper marking, record keeping and traceability, he said.
“But that rule was not statutorily prescribed and that’s been tied up in the courts,” Flood said. “This is an issue that the Pennsylvania General Assembly has failed to act on.”
Council solicitor Michael Gombar said council could move forward with the ordinance in good faith based on a positive ruling from the Commonwealth Court.
“I’m not saying that’s going to stop anyone from potentially suing the city or challenging you or anything like that over it,” he said. “But council could safely consider it at this point in time.”
If the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would come down with a ruling against or adverse to that of the Commonwealth Court, he said, the city’s outlook would obviously change.
The draft ordinance, sponsored by Councilwoman Melissa Ventura, would prohibit the use of any additive manufacturing process to produce a firearm or to convert an unfinished frame or receiver into a finished firearm, Flood explained.
It also would require anyone who uses a 3D printer to manufacture a firearm to first obtain a federal license, he said. The sale or transfer of finished devices or an unfinished frame or receiver would be prohibited unless both parties hold a federal license to manufacture firearms.
If enacted, the ordinance would not prohibit a person from making a firearm for personal use, Flood noted.
“We know that some folks lawfully make their own firearms” he said. “You know, for a lot of folks, this is kind of a sport or a hobby.”
Ventura, who took the lead drafting the ordinance and inviting Flood to speak, said council should be proactive by adopting an ordinance.
“I see the rise in youth violence in the city of Reading within the last four or five years,” she said. “And even though the city has not recovered many ghost guns, we don’t know what’s out there, and I feel like we should be proactive in this ordinance.”
William Heim, city managing director, said he would like to reach out to the police department for input on the enforcement of an ordinance dealing with ghost guns.
Council agreed to discuss the topic with police at a committee-of-the-whole meeting on Aug. 5.
A proposed ordinance could then be introduced at council’s Aug. 12 meeting.
Source: Berkshire mont