The Supreme Court on Wednesday kept a Biden-era gun control measure in place, ruling that weapons parts kits can be regulated like regular guns.
Justices in the 7-2 majority said the government can require background checks for purchases of “ghost guns,” or guns built at home, and registration of the weapons since even unconstructed gun kits fit the definition of weapon in the Gun Control Act of 1968.
“Imagine a rifle disassembled for storage, transport, or cleaning. It may take time to render the rifle useful for combat, but its intended function is clear. And, as a matter of every day speech, that rifle is a weapon, whether disassembled or combat ready. In the same way and for the same reason, an ordinary speaker might well describe the ‘Buy Build Shoot’ kit as a ‘weapon.’ Yes, perhaps a half hour of work is required before anyone can fire a shot. But even as sold, the kit comes with all necessary components, and its intended function as instrument of combat is obvious. Really, the kit’s name says it all: ‘Buy Build Shoot,‘" wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch in the majority opinion.
Gorsuch’s opinion was joined by the court’s three more liberal justices, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito each wrote dissenting opinions.
Thomas rejected the idea that the Gun Control Act applies to weapons parts kits, while Alito said the majority focused on the wrong legal question.
What are ghost guns?
The Supreme Court case, called Bondi v. VanDerStok, centered on a 2022 rule from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The rule was the Biden administration’s attempt to address growing concern about ghost guns, which are increasingly used by criminals because they’re harder to trace.
“Police submitted about 1,800 ghost guns for tracing in 2016. ... Those numbers climbed to 19,000 in 2021, the last year before the new regulations went into effect,” per The Washington Post.
“Our nation has seen an explosion in the crimes committed by ghost guns,” said then-Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar during oral arguments in October.
In large part because it’s difficult to get new gun control laws through Congress, the Biden administration’s ghost gun regulations were attached to a gun control law from 1968. ATF officials said that while weapons parts kits are a new problem, they fit the solution that Congress crafted more than 50 years ago.
Gun manufacturers and gun owners objected to the Biden administration’s new rule and challenged it in court. The case said that the Gun Control Act from 1968 doesn’t apply to today’s ghost gun debates.
Their argument succeeded in the lower courts, which blocked the 2022 rule. But now, the Supreme Court has overturned those decisions and ruled the ghost gun regulations can stand.
Wednesday’s decision is notable, since the court has ruled against gun control efforts multiple times in recent years.
“In 2024, an ideologically divided court struck down a federal ban on bump stocks, the devices that allow rifles to fire like automatic weapons,” The Washington Post reported. “In 2022, the justices upended gun regulations when they ruled a New York law requiring a special need to carry a firearm outside the home was unconstitutional. The court’s conservative supermajority found any gun regulation must be consistent with the nation’s history of firearm regulations. The ruling has resulted in hundreds of challenges to gun regulations across the country.”