People who own and sell ghost guns are committing a crime — but there’s no law against making the deadly weapons that authorities say are a rising threat to New Yorkers.
Anyone with a 3D printing machine capable of churning out magazines, receivers and other firearm parts can whip up an untraceable semiautomatic weapon in their kitchen in less time than it takes to cook a turkey.
Creating deadly weapons without consequences is a growing concern that has pushed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to back new legislation introduced by Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan) that would make manufacturing guns with three-dimensional printing machines a felony in New York.
The DA described it as the crucial next step to laws banning the ownership, sale and shipping of ghost gun parts.
“We had the ‘Iron Pipeline’ that we were concerned for, then the ‘polymer pipeline’ with the ghost gun parts being shipped in. Now, we have, basically, the kitchen table,” Bragg told the Daily News. “They’re printing them right at their kitchen table. This [legislation] would make that a felony.”
Ghost gun enthusiasts have taken full advantage of the troubling loophole. The easy-to-make weapons now account for half of the untraceable firearms confiscated on the city’s streets. The NYPD seized 17 in 2018, with that number increasing more than 52-fold to 365 last year.
“It’s on the rise,” Bragg said. “We obviously still have traditional guns, and we’re focusing on that, that’s a significant public safety issue, but that 75% uptick in seizures, which I think is a good proxy for what’s on the street, is disturbing.”
The proposed bill is the latest effort by New York authorities to tackle the alarming proliferation of ghost guns. The legislation would also make it a crime to sell and distribute instructions online on how to make them.
Assembled from kits without serial numbers and sold without background checks, ghost guns present a major issue for criminal…
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