A push is on for Massachusetts to join other states in passing legislation to crack down on so-called “ghost guns.”
Springfield State Rep. Carlos Gonzalez, the House Chair of the Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, said he hopes to get consensus in the next two weeks to report out a bill that would regulate the firearms that can be assembled at home from untraceable parts allowing the gun owners to circumvent background checks.
“Ghost guns not only pose a serious threat to our citizens, but to the men and women that protect and serve us,” Gonzalez said.
He said that because the components of the ghost gun are non-metallic, the parts could be more easily smuggled past security checkpoints and then quickly assembled into a working firearm.
“That is just alarming to me,” Gonzalez said.
The final legislation, Gonzalez said, is likely to require that the key components of the gun have a serial number just as manufacturers are required to put on a fully-assembled firearm. It will also focus on penalties for illegal possession of a ghost gun.
Gonzalez promoted the ghost gun crackdown effort during a press conference at Springfield police headquarters. He was joined by State Rep. Brian Ashe of East Longmeadow, who is also on the public safety committee, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno, Deputy Chief Steven Kent of the Springfield Police Department, and Kendall Jacobsen of Everytown for Gun Safety, a national advocacy organization against gun violence.
The Biden administration has announced federal rules to require the licensing of ghost gun kits and for dealers to run background checks before selling a kit.
Jacobsen said it is important for states to pass their own regulations.
“It will give local law enforcement the tools they need to crackdown on sellers, keep these guns from circulating in the community and also ensure those guns can be traced back to their source and importantly address emerging technology like 3-D printing,” said Jacobsen.
He said about a dozen states including New York and Connecticut have passed ghost gun laws.
“Have a background check, make sure there is a serial number on key components, you want to make sure it is detectable by a metal detector – those are the key components of ghost gun legislation,” Jacobson said.
Jacobsen said about half the 2,500 people arrested nationwide for illegal possession of a ghost gun had prior convictions that would have prevented them from passing a background check to legally buy a gun.
Ghost gun seizures have been made by police departments across Massachusetts from Boston to North Adams, said Jacobsen.
Over the last three years, ghost gun seizures in Springfield have increased, said Deputy Chief Kent. In 2020 there were six ghost guns recovered by Springfield police, last year the number jumped to 26. So far this year, out of roughly 100 firearms taken off the streets, 10 were ghost guns.
Kent said not being able to trace the history of a gun recovered at a crime scene to determine who sold it is frustrating for law enforcement.
“Someone could roll up into Springfield with 50 of these (ghost guns) in the trunk and distribute them throughout the city and we could recovery every single one of them and not have a means to track back to who is selling them illegally,” Kent said.
Gonzalez said the public safety committee has not heard strong objections to proposed ghost gun legislation from gun rights advocates.
He said there were objections on First Amendment grounds to a provision that would ban the distribution of instructions for assembling unfinished parts to make a gun.
