Police say the black pistol they found in the backpack of Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old arrested in connection with the killing of a health-care executive, was a ghost gun: a weapon typically assembled by its owner at home.
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New York prosecutors charged Mangione with murder, illegal gun possession and possessing a forged instrument after the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
“He was in possession of a ghost gun that had the capability of firing a 9mm round,” Joe Kenny, the New York Police Department’s chief of detectives, said at a news conference Monday. “[The gun] may have been made on a 3D printer.”
Whether the apparent ghost gun was the firearm used to kill Thompson, Kenny said, is a question that a ballistics test will help answer.
Investigators have increasingly linked ghost guns to crimes in recent years, and they have been the target of regulation efforts by state and federal officials. Here’s what to know.
What is a ghost gun?
Ghost guns are typically assembled at home using parts, kits or even pieces printed by 3D printers.
According to the Biden administration, which has sought to regulate the weapons, some “buy build shoot” kits can be assembled into a working firearm in as little as half an hour with equipment at home.
Before 2022, ghost guns were not subject to the same regulations as other commercially purchased firearms, which helped fuel an explosion in their popularity. Ghost guns did not have serial numbers, buyers did not have to undergo a background check to purchase them, and sellers did not have to maintain records of their sales. This made them largely untraceable – and people who were prohibited from owning guns, such as felons, could readily obtain them.
Manufacturers market ghost guns for hobbyists, but in recent years, their suspected use in crimes has proliferated – with the number recovered by law enforcement increasing by about tenfold between 2016 and 2021, according to the Biden administration, as they were linked to nearly 700 homicides or attempted homicides. In 2022, the last year for which data was available, officials seized 25,785 ghost guns domestically.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives classified ghost gun kits and partially completed frames and receivers – the pieces that hold the barrel and firing mechanism – as firearms under the nation’s main gun control law in 2022. That subjected ghost guns to the same regulations as weapons made by licensed manufacturers.
The move was challenged, and the Supreme Court is weighing the issue, in one of the biggest cases it will decide this term. The justices last year allowed the Biden rules to take effect while they heard the case and make a decision.
The weapons are created from a metal or polymer “frame,” for handguns, or a “receiver,” for rifles. The frames and receivers, which have no serial numbers, are often referred to as an “80 percent lower,” meaning the lower part of the gun, which is 80 percent finished. The other 20 percent involves some drilling and machining so that the other parts – the slide, the barrel, the firing mechanism – can be attached to the frame or receiver.
Companies sell different versions, with online videos providing instructions on how to drill and finish the gun at home. According to websites that sell them, a full ghost gun kit can cost between $800 and $1,000.
Are ghost guns legal?
Making a homemade gun isn’t illegal under federal law, but the Biden administration’s 2022 rule required for the first time that the kits include serial numbers and that people who buy them from dealers be subject to background checks.
In the challenge that made it to the Supreme Court, manufacturers said ghost gun kits are marketed for hobbyists and don’t meet the legal definition of a firearm.
In a hearing before the justices this year, Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar argued that the ghost gun rules are consistent with existing regulations and that it would be dangerous not to treat them like other firearms. “Our nation has seen an explosion in the crimes committed by ghost guns,” Prelogar said. A decision in the case is expected before the current term ends in June.
How difficult is it to obtain a ghost gun?
Although more than 12 states and the District of Columbia have adopted laws regulating unserialized weapons, it can be difficult to prevent users from buying ghost guns, with part makers shipping them almost anywhere. Teenagers have also discovered the ease of obtaining weapons they couldn’t get from a licensed dealer. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group, there have been at least 50 incidents involving teenagers and ghost guns since 2019.
In New York, where Brian Thompson was killed, laws prohibiting the possession of an unserialized firearm have been in place since 2022. In Pennsylvania, where Mangione also faces several charges including carrying a firearm without a license, Democrats in the state House have sought to regulate ghost guns.