Last Wednesday, the CEO of the insurer UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was shot to death on a central Manhattan street. Days later, the authorities They arrested the suspect thanks to citizen collaboration: Luigi Mangione, 26, who had “a weapon compatible with the one used in the murder” – with the “ability to fire a nine-millimeter bullet” and a silencer – a lethal tool that could have been manufactured with a 3D printer , as indicated by the New York Police.
Mangione’s arrest
Mangione’s arrest occurred thanks to the tip of a McDonald’s customer in Pennsylvania, who recognized him after having seen him in the media, and immediately alerted one of the employees, who, in turn, tipped off the police. police.
When the officers arrived, Mangione showed them a fake driver’s license in the name of Mark Rosario, although, faced with the police’s threat to arrest him if he lied about his name, he gave his real name. Additionally, when an officer asked him if he had been to New York recently, “he became silent and began to shake,” according to the criminal complaint.
The ‘ghost’ gun: prefabricated kits or 3D printing
After the arrest, the police searched Luis Magione’s backpack and discovered what they called a “ghost gun”, which could have been 3D printedand a magazine with six rounds of 9-millimeter ammunition. In addition, the gun also came with a metal slide and a plastic grip with a threaded metal barrel, according to the complaint.
These types of guns, known as ‘ghosts’, are privately manufactured firearms, which Are assembled from separately purchased parts or kits -which can cost between $200 and $500, according to CBS News- including incomplete frames and receivers, by persons who are not licensed manufacturers according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (AFT).
This is precisely the key: that the kits include a “blank” receiver, which means that it has not been completely finished and, therefore, does not meet the legal definition of a firearm under the Gun Control Act of 1968. Additionally, some parts can be obtained through 3D printers.
In fact, its popularity began to grow in the early 2010s, when Cody Wilson, a leading proponent of 3D printed guns and ghost guns, founded Defense Distributed, which offers digital schemes needed to make a weapon.
Are ‘ghost’ guns legal?
In the United States, generally, arms manufacturers and importers place a serial number and markings on firearms, which identify the manufacturer or importermake, model and caliber, according to reports from Giffords. This way, in the event of an emergency or a shooting, authorities can trace these weapons back to their first purchaser.
However, one of the most notable characteristics of this type of weapon, and which gives meaning to its name – ‘ghosts’ – is that They are manufactured without a serial number to make it difficult to track them.although not all of them are necessarily illegal. In fact, according to the ATF Anyone can make them for personal use, as long as they are ‘detectable’, under the National Firearms Act.
In 2022, the ATF created a new rule that places certain elements of ghost gun kits in the same legal category as traditional firearms, and requires companies that sell kits to add serial numbers to frames and incomplete recipients and perform a background check on potential buyers, as explained in Guardian.
Additionally, this law also requires federally licensed gun dealers to maintain records of ghost gun kit sales until they close their operations.
This novelty was not well received by equipment manufacturers and supporters of the second amendmentso the legal fight is currently before the Supreme Court.
Between 2016 and 2021, more than 45,000 suspected ghost guns recovered by police at potential crime scenes were reported to the ATF.