California recently enacted Assembly Bill 879, which tries to balance concern over the potential criminal use of ghost guns with the legitimate interest of hobbyists. New York and several other Northeastern states have simply outlawed their sale or purchase. No national consensus exists on how such weapons should be regulated.
The ATF regional branch in Glendale declined to say how many it has seized and the ATF national headquarters has not yet responded to a Freedom of Information Act request for the number of ghost gun seizures across California. Mark Tallman at Colorado State University, who studies such weapons, estimates that based on the number of large-scale online sellers for the last few years, there are at least several hundred thousand ghost guns across the nation.
It’s hard to know how many ghost guns exist, as sellers aren’t required to keep records. Many of them feel it’s prudent to own firearms untraceable by the government in case liberals try to confiscate all combat weapons in private hands.
#Glock serial number lookup 2018 serial numbers
They are also purchased by hobbyists and gun collectors who like building things and by 2nd Amendment advocates who want to uphold what they believe is their constitutional right to own firearms without serial numbers or paper trails. In May, the public information officer at the Glendale regional branch of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced that 30% of the confiscated guns in its vault were ghost guns obtained by agents in the course of criminal investigations.įirearm advocates would be quick to point out that criminals constitute only a small portion of the market for gun kits. Sending a wave of weapons without serial numbers or known purchasers out into the nation creates obvious dangers, and officials say the number of such guns has soared. The Department of Justice has no idea I bought a parts kit. But there is a loophole: Just as when I buy nuts and bolts at a hardware store, I can put down cash and walk out the door without anyone ever knowing my name. 1, 2019, I became legally obligated to call the state and get a serial number. At the shows, when I picked up a completed Glock clone - called a “Glock-compatible” pistol - and showed interest in buying a kit, vendors always said something like, “You can go online and get your serial number from the CA Department of Justice before you start your build.” And each plastic pistol frame comes with a small stainless steel plate to engrave a serial number.Īs of Jan. Not only will the finished guns have no serial numbers, but the fact that they are sold in kits exempts them from laws requiring background checks and waiting periods. The plastic frame is called an “80% receiver” because it comes mostly, but not completely, manufactured. To assemble a pistol, the polymer frame, which includes the trigger housing, needs some plastic tabs shaved off and several holes drilled - a hand drill will suffice in steady hands - before it can accept the barrel and action and then fire.
They must be put together before use, though the task doesn’t require sophisticated tools or skill. In California, ghost gun kits - at least the legal ones - mostly feature pistols. The rise in popularity of these weapons in recent years has prompted new California legislation aimed at reining them in, but the market is far ahead of the new policies. Because the gun parts and kits are not finished guns, they mostly escape California’s gun control laws and, once assembled, have a feature that distinguishes them from manufactured weapons: no serial number. The kits, which cost between $400 and $525, come in cardboard boxes containing steel barrels, plastic frames, and an array of small plastic and metal parts. At the huge, carnival-like Orange County and Ventura County gun shows I attended recently, half a dozen vendors were offering imitation Glock semiautomatic pistol models - in pieces.
0 kommentar(er)
