A divided Supreme Court seems to be mostly inclined to support the requirements imposed by the Joe Biden Government for the sale of weapons by piece, usually online, for domestic manufacturing. They are known as ghost guns because they escape the registration, identification and background check requirements that firearms are normally sold under, so they were very difficult to trace. A lower court ruled that the federal government had exceeded its powers with that regulation, but the Supreme Court suspended that decision by a majority of five votes to four that appears to be maintained, according to the oral hearing held this Tuesday in the Court.
The Supreme Court has a conservative predominance of six judges to three, but two of the members of that majority – the president of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, and the judge Amy Coney Barrett – supported precautionary maintenance of the regulation until a decision is made on the merits. , which will arrive in the coming months. It is assumed that the three progressive judges, more restrictive regarding weapons, will support the regulation and both Roberts and Cohen Barrett have shown their skepticism regarding the positions of those who advocate the unrestricted marketing of these weapons. ghost weapons.
The regulation requires gun manufacturers and sellers of parts or jig kits to be licensed to sell them, requires that products carry a serial number that allows them to be tracked, and requires potential buyers to pass a background check, among others. requirements.
No one disputes the right for these weapons to be traded or possessed and, in that sense, this is not a case about the scope of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, which enshrines the right to keep and bear arms, and which has been addressed in previous rulings. What is being discussed is whether the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives exceeded its powers by promulgating the standard by considering these parts as firearms or whether it is Congress that must approve the restrictions. .
The Gun Control Law of 1968 delegated to the Government the power to establish marketing requirements. This power covers devices that “can be easily transformed to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive” and the “frame or receiver of any such weapon.” Part of the discussion, therefore, has revolved around the ease or difficulty of building a weapon from those pieces.
“The Gun Control Law imposes simple, but essential requirements,” argued State Attorney Elizabeth Prelogar. “Firearm sellers and manufacturers must mark their products with serial numbers, maintain sales records, and conduct background checks. “The industry has followed those conditions without difficulty for more than half a century, and those basic requirements are crucial to solving firearms crimes and keeping guns out of the hands of minors, criminals and domestic abusers,” he continued.
“Explosion of crimes”
“But, in recent years, companies like the defendants here have attempted to circumvent those requirements. They have begun selling firearms as easy-to-assemble kits and frames and receivers that require minimal work to be functional. They have advertised the products, in their own words, as ‘ridiculously easy to assemble and foolproof’ and have touted that you can go from opening the mail to having a fully functional gun in just 15 minutes, with no serial number required. , background check or records. These untraceable weapons are attractive to those who cannot legally acquire them or plan to use them to commit crimes. As a result, our country has seen an explosion of crimes committed with ghost guns,” he said.
In his opinion, leaving self-assembly weapons outside the requirements “contradicts the plain text of the law, and also contradicts common sense. “This court should make it clear that the law regulates these products for what they are, firearms and firearm frames and receivers,” he concluded his opening statement.
For their part, those against the norm argue that the majority of people who commit crimes use traditional weapons and that the kits can be difficult to assemble. “Congress, in the Gun Control Act, did not intend to take its purposes of controlling access to firearms to the nth degree,” said attorney Peter Patterson, representative of manufacturers, gun rights groups and weapons and people who own firearm parts. Patterson has also indicated that Congress did not regulate the secondhand firearms market, and “that secondary market is a much greater source of firearms for criminals than homemade firearms.
In the subsequent discussion, ultra-conservative judge Samuel Alito addressed the representative of the Biden Government to question whether the pieces are a weapon. “Here’s a blank pad, and here’s a pen, okay? “Is this a shopping list?” he said. “I don’t think that’s a shopping list, but the reason is that there are a lot of things you could use those products for to create something more than a shopping list,” he answered.
Alito has responded with another example: pointing out that eggs, peppers and ham are not necessarily a Western omelette. Prelogar has insisted that you can do many things with those ingredients besides a tortilla. Judge Barrett has intervened by pointing out that the gun kits are more like food packages ordered online that contain everything needed to prepare a specific dinner, “like turkey chili,” thereby signaling her inclination to consider them a weapon.
The president of the Supreme Court, for his part, Roberts, for his part, has shown his skepticism towards the defenders of the lack of regulation who presented the kits as a matter of DIY, like those who dedicate themselves to tuning their car on the weekend. . Many ghost gun kits only require drilling a few holes and removing a few plastic tabs. “As I understand it, it’s not terribly difficult for someone to do it and it’s certainly not terribly difficult to remove the plastic piece,” he said. “Drilling a hole or two, I think, doesn’t give you the same kind of reward that you get from working on your car on the weekend.”