The sale of untraceable gun parts is fuelling the illegal gun trade in America and the world.
Ghost guns are coming under fire from gun-control advocates. But why are these weapons so difficult to trace? And can anything be done to keep them from getting into the wrong hands?He was at home, getting ready for work, when he got a call that every parent dreads. His daughter Angellyh had been hit by a stray bullet near her school. Before he could get to the hospital, another call came in: She was dead. He didn't believe it until he saw her for himself.
Experts are calling ghost guns the fastest-growing gun safety problem in America. The number of ghost guns recovered from crime scenes by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives , has risen by more than 1,000% since 2017. "Pretty much anyone can get these ghost guns and order parts and make a gun that's just as well as the guns we carry," ATF officer Jerome McClinton told the BBC.
There are also bans on ghost guns in about a dozen states. But David Pucino, the deputy chief counsel at the Giffords Law Center, a gun-control advocacy group, said the new regulations aren't comprehensive enough because they don't cover all parts that can be used to make a ghost gun, such as some "unfinished" frames or receivers.
Polymer80, the largest ghost-gun manufacturer in the US, has been the subject of much of the ire from lawmakers across the country. Mr Kelly argued that ghost guns make up a small fraction of the total number of weapons recovered by law enforcement. In 2021, the ATF recovered 460,024 guns, compared to 19,273 ghost guns.
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