The Supreme Court on

Tuesday

has granted an emergency call from the Biden administration and revived federal rules prohibiting the sale or use of homemade or assembled weapons that can be purchased online and cannot be traced.

The judges overturned a Texas judge’s order last month that had invalidated federal rules on these so-called “ghost weapons.”

The vote was 5-4. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A Alito Jr, Neil M Gorsuch and Brett M Kavanaugh disagreed.

This gun rights dispute is not about the 2nd Amendment, but it has great practical significance.

California police say ghost guns are proliferating, putting deadly weapons in the hands of criminals and teens who can’t legally purchase guns from licensed dealers.

U.S. Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar appealed to the Supreme Court on July 27, urging the justices to overturn the nationwide injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Ft. worth

O’Connor ruled in favor of several Texas gun owners and an arms dealer who argued that the Gun Control Act of 1968 and its definition of a “firearm” does not extend to the unassembled parts of a working gun.

Prelogar described this statement as far-fetched and dangerous.

Unless repeated, it would “enable anyone with access to the Internet to anonymously purchase a parts kit or partially completed frame or receiver and easily assemble a working firearm in just 20 minutes,” she said. That “would virtually repeal core provisions of federal firearms laws. And by making untraceable guns freely available to felons, minors and other proscribed persons, it would endanger the public and thwart efforts to prevent and solve serious crimes.” “

Last year, the White House announced a crackdown on phantom weapons and revised the federal definition of a firearm to clarify that a kit of parts that allows a buyer to easily assemble an operational weapon is a firearm.

“Any English speaker would recognize that a tax on the sale of ‘bookshelves’ applies to IKEA when it sells boxes of parts and the tools and instructions to assemble them into bookshelves,” the attorney general said in her appeal. the Garland v. .vanderstok. District judge’s insistence that guns be treated differently contradicts common practice and mocks Congress

S

careful regulation,” she said.

The government appealed to the 5th Circuit Court in New Orleans

but it

refused to override the judge’s order.

California state attorneys joined the District of Columbia and 13 other states in urging the Supreme Court to revive federal rules on phantom guns.

They said that even in states like California, which ban the manufacture and sale of guns without serial numbers, the previous “federal inaction has allowed individuals to circumvent state gun laws and bring unerialized guns to the states that have tried to keep them out.” For example, while California has been trying to curb deinalized guns since at least 2016, these guns accounted for nearly 30 percent of all guns recovered by the ATF in the state, from 167 in 2016 to nearly 12,900 in 2022, a 77-fold increase .”

The Supreme Court previously agreed to hear oral argument in this case on whether persons subject to

below

domestic violence restraining orders lose their right to have guns. In that case, US vs. Rahimi, the government is appealing a 5th Circuit ruling that such orders violate the 2nd Amendment.