US Supreme Court Allows Biden To Regulate 3D-Printed Firearms (nbcnews.com) 228
Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike shares a report from NBC News: A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Biden administration to enforce regulations aimed at clamping down on so-called ghost guns -- firearm-making kits available online that people can assemble at home. The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, in a brief order (PDF) put on hold a July 5 ruling by a federal judge in Texas that blocked the regulations nationwide. The vote was 5-4, with conservatives Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the three liberal justices in the majority.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, commonly known as ATF, issued the regulations last year to tackle what it claims has been an abrupt increase in the availability of ghost guns. The guns are difficult for law enforcement to trace, with the administration calling them a major threat to public safety. The rule clarified that ghost guns fit within the definition of 'firearm' under federal law, meaning that the government has the power to regulate them in the same way it regulates firearms manufactured and sold through the traditional process. The regulations require manufacturers and sellers of the kits to obtain licenses, mark the products with serial numbers, conduct background checks and maintain records.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, commonly known as ATF, issued the regulations last year to tackle what it claims has been an abrupt increase in the availability of ghost guns. The guns are difficult for law enforcement to trace, with the administration calling them a major threat to public safety. The rule clarified that ghost guns fit within the definition of 'firearm' under federal law, meaning that the government has the power to regulate them in the same way it regulates firearms manufactured and sold through the traditional process. The regulations require manufacturers and sellers of the kits to obtain licenses, mark the products with serial numbers, conduct background checks and maintain records.
Not a final decision (Score:5, Informative)
They just reversed a lower court's ruling while it's litigated.
Biden et al can go ahead for the time being.
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I'm not surprised that Roberts voted with the libs. He's done that on other issues.
ACB is more interesting. She's usually to the right of Kavanaugh.
Re: Not a final decision (Score:2)
Yep, it's a terrible FA. Right on the cusp so that you can't tell if it's incompetent reporting or dishonest reporting without digging into the writer.
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"Any means necessary" meaning winning a majority of voters because his opponent was clearly a deranged moron.
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Did you know that six Supreme Court Justices are Catholic, like Biden?
Did you know that took a LOT longer than Biden's Presidency or Vice Presidency, like stop clickbaiting bullshit?
I don't like Biden either, but seriously. The fuck was your point name dropping.
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Re:Not a final decision (Score:4, Insightful)
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So you are saying this site wants to have sex with other sites of the same sex? Who'd have thunk it?
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"fewer" -- sorry, just being picky.
Re:Not a final decision (Score:5, Informative)
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Apparently you dont understand electoral college. There is no such thing as a national popular vote. It is a madeup thing the media reports. Each state reserves the right as to how they pick their electors.
And 2020 showed us that this is a feature, not a bug. When Texas filed suit over Michigan's election processes, federal courts shut it right down because no state has standing to say anything about how another state decides to allocate its EC votes... and can you imagine the mess that would result if that weren't true?
2020 made another benefit clear: The actual election for president is completely unambiguous. All of the electors cast their ballots in public; we can see how every single one of them voted.
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So instead we should have the 5 most populated cities deciding the rules for the entire USA? No thank you. The electoral college is one of the best things the founders came up with. We are a constitutional republic not a pure democracy for a reason.
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I know it's common in the USA to make that mistake, but a country can be either a republic or a monarchy. And a democracy or a dictatorship.
So the USA is a republic AND and democracy. A republican form of government is not any less "pure" form of a democracy. Canada is not a republic but is a democracy as well.
Maybe you are confusing direct democracy and pure democracy. The USA would still be a representative republic and a democracy even without the electoral college.
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2) Implicit in your statement is the idea that people in cities are somehow less (important, American, trustworthy, whatever) than the "real" people that live in largely empty states. How exactly does it make sense that, in terms of (fractional) electoral votes per person, the vote of someone in Wyoming counts 3x as much as the vote of someone in Boston?
And if you're about to say "Because that
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How exactly does it make sense that, in terms of (fractional) electoral votes per person, the vote of someone in Wyoming counts 3x as much as the vote of someone in Boston?
Seems you're unaware, but two hundred years ago people smarter than you deliberated on the topic and came up with that solution. If you actually cared, you'd go read the federalist papers or something to understand why it makes sense, instead of ranting mindlessly online.
tl;dr An informed person can have a legitimate disagreement with this, but you are not an informed person.
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The electoral college is one of the best things the founders came up with.
Not.. really? Many of the founders actually wanted a direct election of the president (at least by white land owners), but some were scared of direct democracy and wanted congress to elect the president. The electoral college was a compromise so that some states could at least send electors chosen by their state congress. All states eventually made constitutional amendments that required direct democracy anyway, so the electoral college is a pointless vestige. It was never meant to prevent city folk from ru
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so the electoral college is a pointless vestige.
It's funny how people blame the electoral college for electing the guy with less popular votes, when the REAL problem is the 'winner takes all' nonsense that all of the states have put in place. States SHOULD give the two senate votes to the overall winner, but the rest should be allocated on congressional districts. This would get rid of the 'I won California by 2 million votes but lost a few other states by 50,000 votes so I lost' results.
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It absolutely should be the way it is!!
This is the United States of America.
You are a citizen of your state first, then a citizen of the United States.
We are a large country and across the whole of it, there is a lot of different environments, and culture and those breed different needs that all need to be addressed.
The states all need to have a more or less equal v
Re:Not a final decision (Score:4, Insightful)
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The electoral college fails badly in fixing tyranny of the majority.
To fix it, the electoral college would give equal weight to red hair people versus non red hair.
The only thing the electoral college achieve is to give all the power to swing states and none to those who consistently vote the same.
Re: Not a final decision (Score:2)
Anonymous Coward trying to be a tough guy, lol.
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A lot of countries were inspired by the US constitution when drafting their own. Which one kept the electoral college model?
It's a flaw, a bug, a nuisance and a shame.
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So you can do math. Its simply a canvass and even your USC states exactly that. Just because you can add 51 numbers together makes no bearing of the real process. It has no bearing on how the office is chosen.
Your Article II process:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States shall be appointed an Elector.
The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.
The second line blatantly states what power congress is limited to. The only way to change it is via the amendment process. So we will ignore your circle jerk now. Thanks for playing.
Re:Not a final decision (Score:4, Informative)
Trump also lost the first time... but... electoral college.
No, Trump won. The electoral college is how the presidency is decided, so if he won that, how did he lose? The 'popular vote' isn't a thing when it comes to deciding the presidency, not matter how badly you want it to.
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"your party leadership pulled a bait and switch for an establishment candidate"
Didn't happen.
The point - I think they missed it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The point - I think they missed it (Score:5, Informative)
Biggest complaint is that it got "too easy" between jigs that could be run on a 80% receiver with a drill in a press mount or a drill press to straight up 3d printing.
Thing is, making your own gun has always been legal. Up until 1986 you could even make your own machine gun - just had to get permission and pay the $200 tax first.
But the ATF and government want things to be hard. The ATF argues that anything that can be "easily converted" is a machine gun. Their idea of "easily converted" ? A skilled machinist in a shop full of all the needed tools and 8 hours of time. A skilled machinist could make a machine gun from tube and bar stock in that amount of time....
Re:The point - I think they missed it (Score:5, Informative)
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That is what they are trying to eliminate yes. The big lie they are telling everyone is that they are basically kits that just require assembly.
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That is what they are trying to eliminate yes. The big lie they are telling everyone is that they are basically kits that just require assembly.
In the same way Ikea doesn't sell furniture. Just kits.
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That is what they are trying to eliminate yes. The big lie they are telling everyone is that they are basically kits that just require assembly.
In the same way Ikea doesn't sell furniture. Just kits.
To use your Ikea analogy, imagine if all the hardware in your flatpack furniture was just raw forgings and you had to cut the threads on the screws, drill and tap the nuts, punch holes in all the washers, and electro galvanize all of the above before you could make use of anything. That's the difference between an "80% receiver" and a firearm as defined under the law--the 80% is typically just a raw forging or one that's had some minimal machining.
Re:The point - I think they missed it (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The point - I think they missed it (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: The point - I think they missed it (Score:2)
Re:The point - I think they missed it (Score:4, Insightful)
A skilled machinist could make a machine gun from tube and bar stock in that amount of time....
I consider myself a skilled machinist. I can write CNC G-Code in my sleep.
There's no way I could make a machine gun from bar stock in 8 hours. Maybe 8 days.
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Re: The point - I think they missed it (Score:2)
You could make the machine if you didn't have one though. There's very little that a determined machinist can't do if they set their mind to it. Time and materials are the only hitches.
The point - I think you missed it (Score:5, Informative)
Two things :
First, you don't need a rifling machine. You can do a sufficient job on short barrels with just a rifling button and an arbour press.
Second, the barrel does not need to be rifled. A smooth-bore firearm will still work, it just won't be as accurate or have the range of an equivalent firearm with a rifled barrel.
I would recommend doing some reading on the Luty Gun [wikipedia.org] - a 9mm submachine gun made in the UK from hardware store parts as a protest against gun control.
Forgotten Weapons [youtube.com] has - as always - a good overview, and Brandon Herrera [youtube.com] has a - slightly more low-brow - take.
Re:The point - I think you missed it (Score:5, Informative)
One other point, for those in the USA, is that you can just buy a ready-made barrel over the counter in most - if not all - of the states without any regulation.
In fact, you can buy almost everything you need - barrel, bolt, trigger group, magazine, frame, slide - to make a pistol with no more effort than buying a frying pan.
In the USA it is only the "receiver" that is the regulated & serialised part which, in modern pistols, is a small metal box that can easily be milled from a block of metal. Further, you can trivially buy an "80%" receiver - which is a block of metal on which 80% of the work has been completed, requiring just the remaining 20% to be completed by the purchaser, which is in turn based on an ATF ruling that the point at which an unregulated block of raw material becomes a regulated firearm part is when more than 80% of the manufacturing work has been done on it.
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Indeed, although how one can serialise a "parts kit" is open to question. Is that only when they're sold as a "kit," or do the individual parts become a kit if they're on the same order? How many - and what type - of parts constitutes a "kit"? Is it only if they're sold with an 80% receiver? Does it count if you serialise the shipping box you put the parts in, or does each part - barrel, trigger group, screws, roll-pins, etc - need to be serialised?
What if an 80% receiver just comes with a list of part/cat
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We could say a plain square block of aluminum is more than 80% finished. If you count the mining of the ore, the smelting of the metal, the cold-working, the aging and annealing, all of which requires big expensive machines, the final machining operation is probably more like 1% than 20%, even for a block of aluminum.
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Indeed, although how one can serialise a "parts kit" is open to question. Is that only when they're sold as a "kit," or do the individual parts become a kit if they're on the same order?
It's only the lower receiver that has to have a serial number. From a legal perspective, the receiver is the gun; the rest is just accessories.
I haven't looked to see whether they're insisting that receivers be sold with serial numbers even if they're incomplete, or whether they're trying to require people who build their own receiver to register a serial number. If the former, it'll just kill the 80% receiver market and people will buy fully-complete receivers (with the associated FFL dance). Assembly wi
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The only thing that requires federal paperwork is the receiver.
I bet you could CNC a AR15 receiver fairly easily.
Everything else you can just mailorder
Re: The point - I think they missed it (Score:2)
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Well, the situation with chemistry experiment sets is nearly identical - anyone who has one of these can make many different chemistry experiments, but some chemistry experiments may have unpleasant legal consequences for the chemist.
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Anyone with a 3D printer can print stuff. Good luck on regulating that.
Anyone with a metal lathe could machine "ghost" AR lowers and full-auto sears decades ago.
Anyone (meaning enough) believes what their leaders are selling or distracting them with. Good luck on regulating ignorance or stupidity. Humans are compared to lemmings for valid reason.
The UK's experience (Score:2)
It's decades since handguns were banned in the UK, and in that period we've not had a significant number of 'ghost' handguns being created by private individuals. Given the demand in the criminal fraternity for handguns, this would appear to show that either they are ignorant of the possibility or those with the skills all law abiding individuals. I incline to the former explanation.
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Anyone with a 3D printer can print stuff. Good luck on regulating that.
Funny. Let's totally pretend like "Anyone with X can do Y" hasn't been regulated and enforced for most things since forever, right?
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Anyone with a 3D printer can print stuff. Good luck on regulating that.
As far as I know, this about the Government wanting requirement for purchased kits as below:
The regulations require manufacturers and sellers of the kits to obtain licenses, mark the products with serial numbers, conduct background checks and maintain records.
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Any computer can be used to program malware. Selling software that makes creating ransomware as easy as a few clicks is still going to get you in trouble though.
Drones often have technical measures to prevent abuse, like geofencing around airports. It would be harder to do with 3D printers and guns, but even measures like blacklisting known designs would prevent many users from making them. No need to let perfect me the enemy of good, just like we don't allow the existence of metal files to stop us putting
Re:It's not about regulating (Score:5, Insightful)
So people who are already breaking the law will balk at violating new ATF regulations? No, no they will not.
If they want to use 3D printers, lathes, mills, and other equipment to create illegal unregistered firearms then they will do so. And the knowledge of how to do this already exists.
Re: It's not about regulating (Score:3)
Why have laws at all? No criminal has ever been stopped by a law.
You're missing the point (Score:2)
Laws like this let you go after those folks before they kill somebody. You get to arrest them and put them on probation and take away their access to fire arms legally. It's like how we got Al Capone for tax evasion.
That is an absolu
Re: It's not about regulating (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, gotta love destroying rights to fight pre-crime.
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How is it pre-crime?
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Like the right to buy hand grenades at Wal-Mart because you MIGHT do crime?
I think even most Americans are fine with that right being taken since they'd rather not have to worry if their neighbor is storing/using hand grenades for pest control.
99.99% of the population has limits on what types of weapons others can own. For some its any guns. For others its nukes. Some don't feel like its reasonable for neighbors to own high explosives for self-protection or hunting purposes. You have to draw that line somew
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How exactly will this regulation do that? Be specific.
Again, how exactly will this regulation do this?
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The first step is to make it illegal to do it, so there is no doubt and there is a legal basis to intervene if someone does try it. Then software makers can be asked to block printing known 3D gun parts, just like they already block the ability to scan and print bank notes in colour. I'm not sure if software is regulated or not, but all the major commercial packages developed in the US seem to do it.
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Except that's not what this regulation does. At it's core it requires certain sellers to become FFLs and serialize their parts, but has no such requirement on individuals building for their own, or on the machines and software which assist in that.
Intervene... *after* they do it? You're going to find out how?
This is the same fault with expecting that background checks are going t
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Then software makers can be asked to block printing known 3D gun parts
This is the most ridiculous thing I've seen on Slashdot this week. So far.
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I'm going straight to 4D. No rules.
I win go one better than you by going 5D!
For a while it will only be 4D+...but I won't tell you where or when that happens.
Thanks AT&T !
The argument before the court (Score:4, Informative)
The US argued that ATF’s rule regulating gun kits and partially assembled frames fits comfortably within Congress’s definition of a firearm as “any weapon which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.” The fact that the parts require assembly or conversion to become a working weapon is accounted for in that language, The US argued.
“If a state placed a tax on the sale of tables, chairs, couches, and bookshelves, IKEA surely could not avoid that tax by claiming that it does not sell any of those items and instead sells ‘furniture parts kits’ that must be assembled by the purchasers. So too with guns: An ordinary speaker of English would recognize that a company in the business of selling kits that can be assembled into firearms in minutes — and that are designed, marketed, and used for that express purpose — is in the business of selling firearms. A contrary conclusion blinks reality.”
Re:The argument before the court (Score:4, Informative)
Plain text of the law. [congress.gov] It seems pretty clear, "ghost guns" or "kit guns" were already covered under the firearms law and have been since 1968.
" (3) The term 'firearm' means (A) any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive; (B) the frame or receiver of any such weapon; (C) any firearm muffler or firearm silencer; or (D) any destructive device. Such term does not include an antique firearm. "(4) The term destructive device means— " (A) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas (i) bomb, (ii) grenade, (iii) rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces, (iv) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce, (v) mine, or (vi) device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses; (B) any type of weapon (other than a shotgun or a shotgun shell which the Secretary finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes) by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, and which has any barrel with a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter; and (C) any combination of parts either designed or intended for use in converting any device into any destructive device described in subparagraph (A) or (B) and from which a destructive device may be readily assembled."
Re:The argument before the court (Score:5, Informative)
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"Personal manufacturing" - machining a musket or something yourself.
"Assembling a prebuilt kit with a frame someone else manufactured" - nope. Read the law and stop being a "hipocrite." Unless (as your weird word salad and bizarre capitalization indicates) you're simply illiterate and can't understand the in-this-case-very-plain-and-easy-to-understand wording of the law.
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"illiterate inbred"
"sister-fucking GenZ"
"Grow up."
With well worded cohesive arguments like those, how could anyone disagree with your legal analysis. You should be arguing law in front of the Supreme Court with such a masterful command of the English language.
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Is every hardware store a firearm then? Is every brigeport milling machine with raw stock in the vise?
No, because that would be impractical to enforce, and unconstitutionally vague. A pile of parts that still need significant machining before it can be assemble is not "readily assembled"
Lost in the noise, is this a problem? (Score:3, Informative)
How many criminals are going to the trouble of using "ghost guns"?
So far as I can tell criminals just use normal guns. They don't want to fuss with the unreliability of kit guns. They can just buy stolen guns illegally all day long so why not use those?
"Ghost Guns" are only used by hobbyists, and not really a threat to anyone.
If you look at some stats of ghost guns used in crimes [everytownresearch.org], you find the number is pretty tiny - and a lot of the "crimes" involve things like people shooting themselves.
Also that article defines "ghost gun" as "A ghost gun is any gun that doesnâ(TM)t have a serial number and thus canâ(TM)t be traced" But that means normal guns where serial numbers are filed off, very common for criminals to do, are ghost guns as far as stats go - but not the kind of guns from kits this law is addressing.
Since the law will go forward with normal litigation hopefully some more clarity will come to light about exactly what is being banned. Because filing serial numbers off weapons is already illegal without any "ghost gun" law needed...
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Actually no; it's the other way around. In fact, something like half a million guns are illegally brought from the US into Mexico every year; it's part of the reason the cartels there are out-gunning the police. You're also wrong about guns within the US; in California, roughly 60 percent of guns recovered from crime scenes were purchased from out of state.
Crime requires motive, means, and opportunity. You are correct that gun control laws don't do a thing about motive, but they do restrict means and opport
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You can keep lying to yourself... You're the one lying your ass off here, [harvard.edu] SuperKKKendall the Freakish Gun Cult Nut.
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As usual, SuperKKKendall, you're just lying. [abc7chicago.com] Chicago's gun problem is called Indiana. [thetrace.org]
Completely Futile (Score:3, Interesting)
As are all other regulation of guns. These gov't edicts only matter to the law abiding, those people who use them responsibly. The criminals, on the other hand, ignore such laws, do as they please, acquire their firearms by any means available, and wreck havoc with them when it so suits them. Meanwhile, the law abiding who are usually the targets of the criminals are now at a disadvantage since they have found it too much trouble to mess around with the government, jump through its hoops, and have neglected to obtain the only means by which they might fend off the criminals.
See how it works? The more regulations, the more at a disadvantage the general public is, and the freer the criminals are to execute their depredations. Unintended consequences, thy name is "gun control."
UK experience points the other way (Score:2)
We've not seen an epidemic of ghost guns despite the possibility of creating them and hand guns being entirely banned over here.
Re: Completely Futile (Score:2)
Does this have anything to do with Biden? (Score:3)
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Yes. Biden recently appointed Steve Dettelbach as the Director of the ATF. The ATF is part of the Department of Justice, headed by the Attorney General Merrick Garland, whom Biden also appointed. Merrick Garland serves as a member of Biden's Cabinet and effectively with the purpose of implementing the president's policies.
In this official Whitehouse news release [whitehouse.gov], the Biden administration describes how they pursuing this issue
Today, President Biden and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco will deliver remarks in the Rose Garden to announce additional steps the Administration is taking to combat gun crime.
Ensuring that ATF has the leadership it needs to enforce our commonsense gun laws and fight gun crime.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is our top federal law enforcement agency responsible for enforcing our commonsense gun laws. Today, the President is nominating Steve Dettelbach to serve as Director of ATF. ...
Cracking down on ghost guns – the weapon of choice for many violent criminals
Today, the President and Deputy Attorney General will also announce that the U.S. Department of Justice has issued a final rule to rein in the proliferation of “ghost guns” – unserialized, privately-made firearms that law enforcement are increasingly recovering at crime scenes in cities across the country. Last year alone, there were approximately 20,000 suspected ghost guns reported to ATF as having been recovered by law enforcement in criminal investigations – a ten-fold increase from 2016.[1] Because ghost guns lack the serial numbers marked on other firearms, law enforcement has an exceedingly difficult time tracing a ghost gun found at a crime scene back to an individual purchaser.
This final rule bans the business of manufacturing the most accessible ghost guns, such as unserialized “buy build shoot” kits that individuals can buy online or at a store without a background check and can readily assemble into a working firearm in as little as 30 minutes with equipment they have at home. This rule clarifies that these kits qualify as “firearms” under the Gun Control Act, and that commercial manufacturers of such kits must therefore become licensed and include serial numbers on the kits’ frame or receiver, and commercial sellers of these kits must become federally licensed and run background checks prior to a sale – just like they have to do with other commercially-made firearms. ...
This rule builds on the Biden Administration’s prior executive action to rein in the proliferation of ghost guns.
Kits? (Score:2)
There are gunmakers the ATF has no authority over already, though. As long as they never sell across state lines (interstate commerce), the ATF mas no jurisdiction at all. I am aware of a few, but not in my own state and hence of little interest to me (
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The ATF has jurisdiction over all gun manufacturers in the USA ... they just have slightly more powers if they sell across state lines
Poor headline. Not 3D printing. No "allowing". (Score:2)
The headline is misleading. The SCOTUS ruling is about firearms without serial numbers, not 3D printing. Yes, 3D printing is one way to make them. So is buying 80% lower receivers and assembling them. So is filing off an existing serial number. All these are called by the media as "ghost guns", which is not a legal term, not a term of the art, has no place in charging papers, nor means anything. Firearm lacking a serial number is a correct term, except in the latter case, where firearm with fdestroye
Re:Poor headline. Not 3D printing. No "allowing". (Score:4, Interesting)
The district court ruled for the plaintiffs (citizens) and also vacated the recent changes to the regulation (all of them)
The appeals court stayed the order of vacatur in part, but allowed the parts of the regulation that were considered in the district court case to be vacated.
The Supreme Court granted an emergency stay, allowing the regulation (as a whole) to continue to exist and to be enforced on everyone other than the parties to the lawsuit.
This is an unusual situation. See FRACs brief filed on August 2nd for details. The parties to the lawsuit cannot be criminally charged for violating the regulation, but their customers can be, and their suppliers can be charged with aiding and abetting their violation of it.
The docket for this case: 23A82 [supremecourt.gov]
not possible.. (Score:2)
UK experience suggests it is (Score:2)
We have a 100% ban on handguns. Despite that we don't seem to have many being created by hobbyists.
Define kits (Score:2)
If you buy a lower-80, you’re buying a block of plastic (some sell metal ones). There’s no fire control cavity, no way for it to function as a gun. It’s not like you can stop by Gunazon and have a untraceable firearm in minutes. It’s a doorstop, paper weight, etc. and takes tools, time, and some skill to complete the lower. Many incomplete lower sellers just sell this, not an entire kit. A kit has EVERYTHING you need to make a functioning firearm.
This sounds like they’re going
Meh, won't change anything. (Score:2)
My printer is still running. Made an AR15 out of nylon the other day. The CAD files also come with the machinegun version lol.
The small town I live in has a lower murder rate than Japan and is full of guns. Used to live in Chicago. High murder rate.
Density and demographics create high murder rates, not guns, but no one wants to talk about that.
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not what you think (Score:2)
This is another "emergency" application to scotus. Scotus is pissed about getting too many of these, and they have said so. All this does is let the status quo continue until the suits go through normal routes. Basically scotus said, no, this is not an emergency.
I fail to see the importance of this (Score:2)
I'm as pro Second Amendment as the next guy but this (much like the bump stock bullshit) is not the hill I want to die on. I know several people who got excited about these things and built them. They're easy to make and apparently, at least in a couple of cases easy to screw up. I'd rather buy my firearms from manufacturers who do this professionally and provide a warranty and a reasonable expectation of safety/quality with their product. Adding a background check and a serial number is fine. Nothing to se
Really? (Score:2)
"The regulations require manufacturers and sellers of the kits to obtain licenses, mark the products with serial numbers, conduct background checks and maintain records."
The people who 3d print whole metal guns for the criminals won't care one bit.
Homicidal teens won't care either.
Liberal vs Conservative?? (Score:2)
Re:huh (Score:4, Insightful)
In most of the world manufacturing of anything that is legally defined as a "firearm" is heavy regulated in the most abstract terms, so it doesn't really matter if one 3D prints them, turns them on a lathe/mill or forming. It won't matter even if you eventually snatch a working replicator from a visiting band of your favorite Sci-Fi characters from the future.
Re: (Score:2)
But that doesn't mean that there isn't any problem elsewhere. Plenty of problems with smuggling of illegal weapons and an increase of 3D printed weapons, mostly by crime gangs.
Re: (Score:3)
Why does this one get brought up so often in these types of discussions?
Government already decided the nuclear material needed to make a nuke is, itself, highly regulated. So for that reason alone, it really is a poor comparison to just about any projectile type weapon you could complain you should have a right to build/own/use.
I'm very much libertarian but I believe there are definitely extremes you can go to, where the issue stops being about what YOU have a right to do. You're unable to exercise that rig
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
One of the things they explicitly stated was the right to arms shall not be infringed.
No, what they said was a well regulated militia was necessary to the security of the nation because they didn't want a standing army like England had. The key words being well regulated.
Avg people at the time had all the weapons the govt had.
And thus, the government regulated them by requiring them to register their weapon with the government.
Still further, if one would dare to read the Constitution, Congress has the powe
Re: Right to own a nuke (Score:3, Informative)
"The key words being well regulated."
The most common sense for those words at the time was "in proper working order", not "controlled by regulations".
The people who wrote the thing told us in their other writings that it was meant to be an individual right. Pity they didn't write it more explicitly.
That doesn't mean it shouldn't be changed, only that it requires a constitutional amendment to do so.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"No, what they said was a well regulated militia was necessary to the security of the nation because they didn't want a standing army like England had. The key words being well regulated."
You're using the failed logic of the US vs Miller, where the govt argued the right to bear arms was connected to the militia section. This fallacy has been corrected in numerous supreme court rulings since, mainly McDonald vs Chicago.
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The right to keep and bear arms was considered no less fundamental by tho