Shearer, who is co-counsel in the lawsuit, said state gun laws have been undermined by the ATF’s refusal to treat the parts used to build homemade guns as firearms. This allows “unscrupulous†DIY firearm sellers to flood the gun market. “The ATF has specifically exempted them from the federal definition of a firearm, meaning federal gun laws don’t apply to them. As a result, people can order and build these guns without passing background check or even verifying their age,†she said. “This has opened the biggest loophole you can imagine in our federal and state gun laws.â€
It’s easy for someone writing to say that the ATF should regulate “ghost guns,†but the problem is that there’s no practical way to do it. Sure, the ATF could redefine at what point a receiver becomes a firearm, but that will likely push people to build guns complying with the new rules. It wouldn’t actually stop anyone.
For Paloma Heindorff, who took over as head of the company last year after stints as director of development and vice president of operations, these innovations are an important part of keeping the powerful in check. “We’ve got to be developing technologies in the independent sector to be able to counterbalance the enormous control that the government has and the enormous access to information that corporations have,” she says.
H.R. 7115 reads: “To prohibit the sale, acquisition, distribution in commerce, or import into the United States of certain firearm receiver castings or blanks, assault weapon parts kits, and machinegun parts kits and the marketing or advertising of such castings or blanks and kits on any medium of electronic communications, to require homemade firearms to have serial numbers, and for other purposes.â€
Grewal’s action targets unnamed “ghost gun makers†who he argues advertises build and kits to New Jersey residents with possible civil action under New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act, with as much as a $10,000 penalty for initial offenses. He holds that fraud is committed because the makers do not disclose that possessing a firearm classified under state law as an unregistered “assault weapon†in New Jersey is a crime.
“As the chief law enforcement officer for New Jersey, I demand you stop selling and advertising unregistered and unserialized assault weapons to New Jersey residents,†Grewal says in the letter. “Should you fail to comply with this demand within 15 days, my Office will initiate legal action.â€
Lawyers for the Department of Justice submitted a memorandum Friday in the United States District Court, Southern District of California, in support of defendant’s motion to dismiss Lycurgan, Inc., dba Ares Armor vs. B. Todd Jones [successor name to be substituted], in his official capacity as Head of the San Diego Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The case involves Ares’ contention that ATF erred and overstepped its authority in declaring the firm’s EP80 polymer precursor receivers (“80 percent receiversâ€) to be complete receivers, and thus “firearms†as defined by the Gun Control Act of 1968.