'We've seen that technology moves very quickly and policy tends to move a little bit more slowly,' he said. There's a question of whether the latest efforts to fight the proliferation of ghost guns made with kits could lead to increased production of ghost guns made through 3D-printing, McCourt said.

McCourt said policymakers should also take a closer look at 3D-printed ghost guns, which were not the focus of the final rule. And in Los Angeles, 24% of the 8,121 guns seized in 2021 were ghost guns. On the West Coast, San Francisco police seized more than 190 ghost guns in 2021, amounting to 20% of all guns seized by the department. And in Baltimore, police seized 345 ghost guns in 2021 - compared with 12 seized in 2018. In Philadelphia, 571 ghost guns were recovered in 2021. And in 2019, a 16-year-old used a ghost gun to shoot five students before shooting himself at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita. While data on ghost guns is limited, McCourt said, the weapons have been cropping up across the country.Įarlier this year, police found a ghost gun at a Maryland high school after a student allegedly shot another student. How often are these guns used? And where are we seeing them? 'These records will continue to belong to, and be maintained by, federal firearms licensees while they are in business,' the DOJ said in a release. Throughout the past decade, the ATF has struggled to trace firearms because the records had been destroyed.

In addition, the rule will require federally licensed gun retailers to hold on to records for the length of time that they're licensed, according to the Department of Justice. This applies to all ghost guns - whether produced in a kit, assembled from parts or 3D-printed. As for the ghost guns that are already in circulation, the rule will require that licensed dealers add serial numbers to any ghost guns that are part of their inventory.

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